Trial and Error
by Aki1
Summary: Luciano Bradley lived on being able to take away the one thing people held most dear - and always, without fail, it was their lives. But apparently, Suzaku Kururugi was an exception, an anomaly. // Slash, violence, swearing, non-con. // 5-shot
1. 01

Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. In other words, yeah, it's not mine, and I'm not making money out of this. Enjoy the fic; author's note at the very end.

* * *

**Trial and Error**

**. : 1 : . **

Luciano Bradley had been irritated, at first.

Well, maybe not. Surprise, perhaps, came before that - and it was an emotion shared by all the other Knights of the Rounds when Bismarck, the Knight of One, had gathered them all and introduced them to their newest colleague. Those hardened green eyes had a bit of a slant to them, and at that moment everything Bismarck was saying - this man had captured Zero, this man piloted the Special Envoy's Lancelot, this man was Knight of Honor to Princess Euphemia - turned into an unintelligible buzz in his brain. And all that remained was the fact that this boy (he could not possibly be over seventeen), this Eleven, this _monkey_, was a Knight of the Rounds.

"My name is Suzaku Kururugi. I look forward to working with you all."

He didn't know what it was about those words that eventually set off his irritation - it might have been the slight accent, or the polite but curt tone he'd used, or the way his head bowed ever so slightly (later he would ask around and find out nobody else noticed it, but _he_ did, oh he was _so sure _he did) as though in another reality, another time, he would have bowed at the waist to convey respect to his new comrades the Japanese way. The Eleven way.

Luciano bared his teeth at that moment, and perhaps everyone thought it was a smile. ("Recorded," came Anya's monotone after a flash in his direction that had hurt his eyes.) It wasn't.

The final straw came when Bismarck made it official: "His Majesty has hereby bestowed upon Lord Kururugi the title Knight of Seven. Lord Weinberg, if you could show him to his quarters and around the base; the rest of you, carry on as you were."

The boy hadn't even flinched when Gino, boisterous as always, had him in a veritable choke-hold of a hug and proceeded to drag him out of the common room. But at that very moment, the Knight of Ten had seen red; this boy, this Eleven, this _monkey_ was Knight of Seven. _Seven_. And while on paper the Knights of Three to Twelve were considered equals, the numbers were still somewhat telling.

He'd tried to gauge Monica's reaction by glancing at her, but all he saw was a slight giggle as she regarded the new Knight of the Rounds from afar.

The day Suzaku Kururugi was formally inducted into the Knights of the Rounds, Luciano Bradley single-handedly wiped out an entire resistance force in Area 9. They had numbered several hundred; there were no survivors.

* * *

When Kallen Kouzuki, the ace of the Black Knights had been captured, he hadn't thought much of it. When he'd learned she had personally been handed over by the Chinese Federation to the Knight of Seven, it had piqued his interest, but only slightly.

When he'd learned that Suzaku himself was delivering the prisoner's food everyday, like clockwork, a wonderful plan began hatching in his head.

You see, he had long ago decided that he did not like Suzaku Kururugi; he did not like the rank he held, he did not like his relatively small build - far too lithe for a Britannian who would exude similar strength. He did not like the way he sometimes stumbled over long, complex Britannian words and everyone around him just let it pass.

He did not like how the scientists in the Special Envoy doted on him. He did not like how, whenever a new piece of cutting-edge Knightmare technology was developed, they would always always _always_ test it on the Lancelot first; only after several months would his Knightmare, or Tristan or Mordred or any of the others, get a taste of it. Secretly, though, every time it happened, he would feel a bit elated at the thought that one of the devices might possibly malfunction, and Suzaku would die in a tragic accident in the name of military science. But it never did; that boy, that Eleven, that _monkey _always came back in one piece, and the Special Envoy would praise his performance as though he were Godsend, and that damn Eleven would downplay them humbly and claim, "this success would not have been possible without your efforts, so I thank you all."

He wanted to retch every single time.

He did not like the way Monica giggled and downright flirted in the boy's presence, the way the Knights of Three and Six seemed to cling to him as though they were best friends, the way Bismarck would congratulate him with a too-hearty slap on the back after each mission accomplished (the first time he had done it; the boy had been knocked off his feet; nowadays, it was just a stumble.) He did not like his tousled brown hair, the way his uniform was always pressed neatly and in pristine condition, the way he always wore that silly blue pin over his left breast pocket, above his heart.

He did not like Suzaku Kururugi, and for all those little reasons he decided one day that the only way to remedy this was if Suzaku Kururugi were to die.

* * *

He'd tried it himself, so many times on the battlefield. During large battles, after all, with hundreds of Knightmares in the air it was sometimes hard to keep track of which was which, and friendly fire was not unheard-of. Of course, his Knightmare's tracking and communications systems were top-of-the-line and marked FRIEND and FOE clearly in different colors on his screen, but he was willing to milk the excuse for all it was worth anyway; as Knight of Ten, practically all he had to do was say "oops" and he'd get off with a slap on the wrist, no questions asked.

But the boy had proven extremely difficult to kill. He'd managed, at best, several near-misses - some by mere inches. Suzaku never retaliated, though...at least, not physically, as each of his 'misfires' would always be followed by an eerily calm, "Lord Bradley, the enemy is _that_ way," on the channel all the Knights of the Rounds shared. And in those moments, caught between his begrudging acceptance of the boy's natural talent and the shame brought about from the polite snickers over the open channel (Gino Weinberg would always laugh out loud and long, politeness be damned), the hatred he held for that boy, that Eleven, that _monkey_ slowly and dangerously began to grow.

So Luciano Bradley decided to be more creative. He once cajoled an Eleven into assassinating the Knight of Seven - "Suzaku Kururugi, traitor to Japan." That had backfired rather embarrassingly. (Interestingly, he found out afterward that the signature at the bottom of the luckless Eleven's execution sentence was that of one Anya Earlstreim; when he'd casually asked the Knight of Six about it over luncheon the next day, the only response he got from the girl - "I think Suzaku is a masochist" - hadn't been remotely helpful.)

It was at this point that Luciano Bradley decided to be more direct. Of course, killing Suzaku in broad daylight in front of witnesses would be quite the scandal - he doubted he could get away with an "oops" and a slap on the wrist in that case. So he also decided, at this point, that he needed to set up a chance to find Suzaku alone.

(Also at this point, he was beginning to become well aware that his initial, mild irritation had evolved into downright obsession; he did not care.)

It involved months of patient observations, but whenever Suzaku was in his private quarters the door was bolted shut; otherwise, he was always in the company of other people - Gino and Anya, Lloyd and Cecile, the students at Ashford Academy, sometimes Guilford and the Glaston Knights, sometimes summoned by Prince Schneizel or even the Emperor himself. It frustrated him how ridiculously difficult it was to corner a mere boy, a mere Eleven, a mere _monkey_ and do away with him, but the closest he ever got was a fleeting moment alone in the hallway, only to be disturbed by either the raucous Knight of Three or that mad scientist's blue-haired assistant.

So, to sum up: he hated Suzaku Kururugi with a vehemence that knew no borders. How it had gotten to this point, he wasn't quite sure himself, and could hardly point to a single over-arching reason - the closest would be "that damn Number is Knight of _Seven_!" He wanted Suzaku Kururugi dead. Subtletly did not work, indirect methods did not work. He wasn't quite so obsessed with him to consider risking his career by killing him in the open, so he had plotted and schemed, in vain, to corner the Knight of Seven and kill him without witnesses. All his efforts were fruitless.

Until now.

* * *

Luciano Bradley, Knight of Ten and the self-proclaimed Vampire of Britannia, fingered the butterfly knife concealed within the sleeve of his uniform. His heart pounded, almost audibly, but not out of anxiety. He knew this feeling all too well - the rush that came before a kill. He had felt it countless times on the battlefield, but never had he been _this_ excited. Perhaps, the fact that this kill had taken him several months to plot and execute had a hand in that; he could hardly keep himself from laughing in sheer glee, so he settled for a wide grin on his face.

"You seem pleased today, Lord Bradley."

"I am _very_ pleased," he said honestly, regarding the object of his obsession out of the corner of his eye. Suzaku Kururugi, he who had dared take a number higher than his, was walking impassively beside him, carrying a metal tray of food in his gloved hands. So intently had he been watching the boy that he almost forgot to expound: "The thought of meeting the Ace of the Black Knights face-to-face excites me. Thank you for allowing me to accompany you today."

It was a lie, of course. The only thing he knew of Kallen Kouzuki was that she was an excellent Knightmare pilot, but when all your colleagues are Knights of the Rounds of the Holy Britannian Empire, "excellent Knightmare pilots" become a dime a dozen. But this woman had become integral to his plan; Kouzuki had been deemed dangerous enough to be worthy of solitary confinement, and her cell was at the far end of the lowest level underground.

He surveyed his surroundings impassively as they neared her cell; the nearest guard was stationed at the foot of the stairs at the other end of the hallway, so at this point he was quite certain they were out of earshot. It wasn't as though this place needed additional guards anyway; the heavy metal door was shut by six different locks - a mix of deadbolts, combination locks and electronics - from the outside.

Luciano had an airtight plan: he would kill Suzaku in Kouzuki's cell, and if worse came to worst he would blame her entirely for it ("I swear, I had no idea how she got out of her binds or came upon that knife. It all happened too fast!") and call her names and, as sincerely as he could, mourn the loss of his comrade.

Of course, she would protest her innocence all the way, but the testimony of an Eleven terrorist held little weight against that of the Knight of Ten.

Luciano Bradley was so pleased with himself, and with his imminent success, that he barely noticed the other Knight had been speaking at all.

"...rather difficult one. Sometimes she yells obscenities at you, but if you just ignore her..."

He watched keenly as Suzaku's adam's apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. He imagined slitting that throat and absently wondered if Suzaku would bleed red.

* * *

"Kallen, it's time to - "

The door had barely shut behind them when he lunged. Using his advantage in size and the element of surprise, he was able to tackle the smaller Knight to the floor. The bound Eleven in the far corner of the room let out a shriek as the tray clattered to the floor, spilling water and gruel; an apple rolled clumsily along, coming to a stop just inches from her face as she watched what transpired with sheer horror.

"I've been waiting for this for a long time!" he declared loudly, grinning maniacally; his heart now thundered in his ears. Suzaku struggled valiantly beneath him, but he _was_ smaller, he was pinned to the floor, and looked confused; he did not seem to have made sense of the situation quite yet.

"Lord Bradley, what - ?"

Ah, that was it, then. He still thought they were comrades, and could not imagine why he was being attacked by a fellow Knight of the Rounds. Luciano laughed out loud at the thought; the Knight of Betrayal himself, confused and perhaps not realizing what he was about to do.

The irony was priceless.

"I do have to hand it to you, _Suzaku_." He drew out the last word, his victim's name, in a violent hiss. "You truly made this oh-so-difficult for me. But it ends today. Do you know why, hmmm?" He leaned in close, relishing the emotions he saw - confusion, panic, and...was that the slightest hint of fear? - in those vivid green eyes. "Because I win. I _alway_s do."

_Because you can't be Knight of Seven_, he wanted to add. _Because you shouldn't even be a Knight at all. Because you're a Number, but you act as if you can be one of us, as if you always were. Because they all seem to like you, because they fawn over you, because they give you all the breaks in the world and it's not fair because you're just a boy, you're just an Eleven, a monkey, who got lucky and it's time to end this. _

"I have a question for you, Suzaku Kururugi," he drawled, brandishing the knife in three quick strokes. He heard the prisoner scream as he pressed the blade of the knife against the boy's jugular. "What is the thing you hold most dear?" When he didn't reply, he pressed the knife down harder, as far as he dared without breaking the skin just yet. "Is it your _life_?"

He didn't know if he was seeing things, but the moment the words left his lips he could have sworn he saw the edges of those green irises glow a faint red.

And then, just as quickly, those eyes that had just been so vivid lost their brightness; the apprehension melted from the boy's form and he merely met his captor's gaze with a blank, dulled eyes.

"No," he said. "Not really."

The Vampire of Britannia had been waiting for him to affirm and plead for his life, so it was understandable that he drew back in surprise at the dead monotone of a reply. And it was understandable that he did not see the kick that knocked the knife out of his hand.

The weapon bounced across the floor just as he felt the knee colliding with his gut. The world went white for the briefest of moments, but when things settled to normal he was on his hands and knees, gasping for air, and Suzaku Kururugi was on his feet several meters away, picking up the butterfly knife and pocketing it carefully.

He dared to look. Their eyes met for a brief moment, as the Knight of Seven took the time to brush some of the dust off his uniform.

"Kallen," he called out, though his gaze did not leave the Knight of Ten. "I apologize for that. I will send for someone to bring you another tray of food immediately." There was no anger in that gaze; only deadened pools of green that bore into him, as though seeing right through him. "If you'll excuse me."

And with that, he turned and left without another word, without so much as a backward glance.

* * *

Luciano Bradley was no longer irritated. He was still resentful, and still hated the other boy with a passion...but now it was eclipsed by something else, for the simple reason that how much Suzaku Kururugi irked him was nowhere near how much he _intrigued_ him.

* * *

Author's Notes:

I just recently got into this fandom, and yes I'm aware this pairing is not very popular (it's definitely not canon!) and that's understandable, I suppose. It honestly wouldn't be my first choice for a pairing to ship. And, well, there wasn't much Luciano/Suzaku interaction in the series, if I recall correctly, which doesn't leave me much to work with. At the same time, though, it's these very reasons that make this idea intriguing for me, so I decided to try my hand at it.

A word of caution, though: this is most definitely _not_ going to be a romance fic, and yet while the rating is T for now, I assure you all at this point that it will definitely hit M before very long (and that in itself should be telling.)

I haven't written fanfiction in a long time. It has literally been years (while I do have some incomplete works up, in other fandoms, they are _years_ old and would really suck, I admit), so any and all feedback will be accepted and thoroughly appreciated. If the characters (all...two of them) were OOC, or if I got some of the terms wrong, or if there are blatant typos, or whatever, let me know; please leave a review!


	2. 02

Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. In other words, yeah, it's not mine, and I'm not making money out of this. Enjoy the fic; author's note at the very end.

* * *

**Trial and Error**

**. : 2 : . **

As expected, for a short time after that incident Luciano Bradley was on his best behavior.

That wasn't saying much, if truth be told. But if nothing else, the effort he put into it was remarkable. Every time he was in the boy's presence - during debriefings, mission outlines (such as this one), and other such meetings, try as he might he could not fight off the uneasiness that would creep, against his will, into his veins.

He knew his crime: he had deliberately laid hands on, and attempted to murder, a Knight of the Rounds.

What he didn't know was his sentence. It was a..._strange _position, being part of this exclusive order. Knights of the Rounds were generally out of reach of the long arm of the law in Britannia. On the other hand, so much as throwing a punch at one of the Twelve usually led to the gallows for even the most decorated soldiers. So it was an interesting situation he'd put himself into; would they find a middle ground for him?

He chuckled absentmindedly at the thought.

"Something you'd like to share, Lord Bradley?"

"Not particularly," he drawled, giving Bismarck a slight shrug for an apology. "Do go on."

The Knight of One let out a disapproving sigh, before eventually continuing his instructions. There was something in there about an uprising in Area 21, formation-this, His-Majesty-that. Luciano kept on an impassive smile, and his body was turned to face Bismarck completely, but his eyes and thoughts were elsewhere.

Suzaku was on the opposite end of the table at which they were all seated, his hands clasped and barely resting on the table's edge as he listened intently. It had been three days, and yet....

Well. Maybe all this worrying was unnecessary on his part; after all, he would never be sentenced unless Suzaku actually reported what he had done.

Luciano frowned. When was this Eleven going to turn him in?

That day, he had waited a good ten minutes after Suzaku had left before he even set foot outside Kouzuki's cell. And all day, he had been waiting for..._something_ - a warrant of arrest, an escort to an interrogations office, Bismarck taking him aside and giving him a stern warning. Hell, even having Suzaku point at him yelling "He tried to kill me!" would have surprised him far less than what was happening now - _nothing._

The frown on his face evolved quickly into a scowl as he studied the boy more closely now. He was well-behaved as always, giving his undivided attention to whoever was speaking at any time, and promptly delivering an opinion when asked. They hadn't spoken directly since the incident, but the way Suzaku was acting it was almost as though he didn't even remember what had happened at all, or had simply chosen to dismiss it.

_That_ possibility riled him. He would _not_ be ignored by a mere Number (no matter if it got him off scot-free from a potential felony.) How dare he.

"So then. The operation will commence at exactly thirteen-hundred hours. You all have your orders."

He barely even recalled that he was in a meeting, but years of doing this job had conditioned him enough to stand at attention, giving the Knights' salute as they were officially dismissed. He tried, for all of three seconds, to remember what his orders may have been, before realizing it didn't matter in the least - on the battlefield, all that mattered was killing off the enemy forces. More kills led to less resistance which led to quick victory; he failed to see how it could get simpler than that.

(Of course, on a more personal level, more kills simply meant more chances for him to take away precious lives from frightened, hysterical soldiers; he loved his job so much.)

Gino was bounding out of the room in a heartbeat, chattering about what he wanted to have for lunch while dragging Anya along with him. He looked around. The other women had decided to stay and converse among themselves in the lounge while Bismarck remained to shut down the multimedia presentation that had accompanied his mission outline.

And as such he found himself and Suzaku heading for the door at roughly the same time.

There was a pause, and his eyes locked onto pools of jade. Suzaku faltered mid-step, as though suddenly unsure. But then he bowed his head slightly, and made his way into the corridor.

Luciano followed him, and made no attempt whatsoever to conceal the fact that he was doing so.

He kept several steps behind, and as such was free to observe the boy at leisure. Suzaku always carried himself with intensity - shoulders thrown back, chin up, body straight as an arrow, eyes set dead-ahead. Every step seemed measured, each footfall precise. It was a far cry from how Gino ambled along, how Monica sashayed towards her destination, how Anya shuffled her feet silently with her gaze glued to the electronic diary in her hands.

It wasn't even the same as how Bismarck walked; while they shared the rigid posture and determined strides, the Knight of One commanded respect simply by stepping into a room and filling it with his sheer presence. The Eleven, on the other hand, exuded an air of personal confidence marred by a touch of insecurity...as though he were never good enough, as though he perpetually had something to prove.

After a few more minutes of this, Luciano Bradley decided it was time for a conversation - whatever for, he didn't know, but if for nothing else it would at least keep him amused.

"So," he started, dissolving the silence that had ruled the hallway in a single second. "Do you think those Twenty-ones will put up much of a fight today?"

"It's hard to tell at this point," Suzaku answered. "Lord Waldstein has promised we would offer them a chance to surrender first. How much of a fight remains would depend on how many of them take us up on that offer."

He snorted. "What a waste of time. It's not as though they'll be pardoned anyway." _And the more troops surrender, the less there are to kill, and the less fun I can have_, he thought to himself, but he didn't say it aloud.

"Perhaps not, but...at least they'll be spared on the battlefield. And they will be tried according to international law."

_Which is all so boring_, he wanted to say, but Suzaku had stopped walking and fallen behind him. He halted as well, and that was when he realized where they were - the entrance to the Special Envoy's main laboratory. Had they been walking that long?

"I'll see you on the battlefield today, Lord Bradley."

"Yes. Try not to get yourself killed, Lord Kururugi..." He would have left right then and there, had he not realized what a golden opportunity this was. "Not that you would care either way, apparently," he continued without missing a beat. "Am I right?"

"That's not true," the boy answered, a little too quickly. An intense flash of green eyes - ah, so he _did_ remember, that much was certain now - coupled a slight furrow of his brows. "I just..." He would have waited patiently for him to finish that train of thought, but Suzaku killed it himself; snapping his mouth shut, he squared his shoulders, his face a blank slate. "There are more important things than that."

"Bullshit!" he spat out harshly, and for a second he thought the boy's reaction - eyes widened in surprise, a sudden tension in his frame, all a far cry from the stoic numbness he usually displayed - single-handedly made his outburst entirely worth it. "That's not even possible. I've seen it, countless times - every person I ever threatened to kill would beg me not to. They'd bargain for their lives, their most precious thing. Of course," he grinned widely, "it just made it sweeter when I took it away, but that's beside the point now."

Suzaku didn't respond to that, only eyeing him in an odd way. Nonplussed, he stretched lazily and tried to recall the faces of the soldiers, civilians, and prisoners he'd killed in his lifetime. It was fruitless - there were so many of them; they'd merged into a collective, faceless entity that didn't even make a sound when it screamed.

"The point is, it's a part of human nature - life is always the most precious thing to every person. Every single one." He stopped himself abruptly and spun on his heel, facing the other Knight. "And surely you know why that is, Lord Kururugi?"

"Enlighten me, Lord Bradley," came the wary reply.

"Because once you lose your life, you lose everything!" Unwittingly he took a step forward; Suzaku backed away correspondingly, but he hardly noticed, merely stepping forward again. The fact that this _monkey_ could not seemingly comprehend the most basic principles of humanity utterly astounded him. And it frustrated him as well, despite the grin he plastered on his face as he advanced. "Everything you've worked for, all the goals you've accomplished and all the plans you've made - all of those mean nothing if you are _dead_!"

His mind barely registered how his right hand had reached into an inside pocket, drawing a dagger and brandishing it as Suzaku's back hit the wall (and even that did not stop his approach.) "And everything and everyone you hold dear to you, will be cut off from you entirely, for all eternity. _That_ is why everyone is so terrified to die!" He raised the knife; his hand was trembling slightly, but he wasn't sure whether it was from the familiar predatory rush, or from _something else entirely_. The muscles in his face were starting to become sore from all the grinning. "Do you understand now?"

He brought the dagger down. (Because damned if this boy still didn't get it; he would show him himself.)

Strong fingers curled around his wrist at the last possible moment, halting the dagger's forward thrust.

"Hah!" he shouted in triumph; he was _right_, and was just about to point it out and rub it in the other Knight's face. But there were three things he noticed in that frame of time that gave him pause: one, Suzaku's expression was steely and blank, as it often was. Two, the lethal tip of the dagger was just barely grazing the center of his forehead, and yet (three) he could feel the telltale warmth from the boy's hand as even as it seeped through his glove.

Suzaku...even in a situation like this, he realized, Suzaku was _not scared at all._

"Lord Bradley," the Knight of Seven began after a spell of silence that had been particularly long. "If you want to kill me, cross blades with me. Because this..." He eyed the dagger distastefully. "This is just an insult to us both."

Slowly, very slowly, Luciano withdrew the dagger and placed it back into its harness, one of the many he kept underneath the long coat of his uniform.

"Why didn't you report what happened in Kouzuki's cell?" he demanded.

"I saw that coming." The boy shook his head, suddenly seeming so tired, before he answered. "Because it wouldn't matter...because it wouldn't change anything, at least not for the better." He raised his head and met the taller Knight's gaze. "Like I said, if you want me dead, challenge me to an honorable duel. I promise I won't make it easy for you, but at least it will be a more dignified approach. Does that sound fair?"

It was all becoming painfully clear now. Luciano realized this as he stepped back several paces, regarding the boy from afar with a morbid kind of curiosity. Suzaku was different from "every person" he had killed; he was not even_ remotely_ like them. Suzaku Kururugi was an anomaly. No other word could possbily describe a boy who didn't bother to report an attempt on his life, and who just seconds ago had seemed perfectly unperturbed pressed up against a wall and held at knife-point.

He was...

"You're an idiot," he said bluntly. "I can't believe they let you become a Knight of the Rounds."

Suzaku laughed at that, but it sounded so dead and hollow and quiet, far too quiet to hold any real mirth.

"I get that a lot," was all he said, before throwing open the door to the laboratory. "If you'll excuse me."

(And he was always so polite, even when he had just been assaulted and insulted by the same man who tried to kill him three days ago.)

* * *

It came as no surprise that they secured a victory in Area 21 that day. Not one of the stubborn freedom fighters there had willingly surrendered, and Luciano Bradley gleefully went on a killing spree whose casualties included the enemy commander, around a hundred soldiers and pilots, and a dozen civilians who tearfully offered him anything and everything - (the richer ones offered money, the less-fortunate went even lower) - to spare them.

Only he was not so gleeful the entire time. Even as blood spattered onto his Knightmare and anguished screams rang clearly from the speakers in his cockpit, a tiny part of his mind did not partake in the joy. That tiny part, which should have been insignificant but somehow wasn't, was preoccupied with how he had threatened to kill Suzaku twice, and both times he did not care.

He hadn't been prepared for the boy's answer during the first time (and what happened after that was an embarrassing memory he pointedly chose to ignore.) But that morning, in the hallway - he could have done it. He could have pulled out another dagger with his left hand and rammed it into that damn Eleven's gut without blinking. Nothing would have been easier.

Of course, there would be no hiding the evidence then, and he would be sanctioned with...whatever punishment would be dealt. But he knew it wasn't the fear of the repercussions that made him draw back and let the other Knight go. It was...well it was the fact that it _just wasn't fun_ anymore.

He no longer doubted that Suzaku Kururugi was a strange man who did not prioritize his life above all other things. And Luciano Bradley, the Vampire of Britannia, found pleasure, found sheer fulfillment in taking away that one most precious thing people held dear; if, for some reason, Suzaku didn't consider his own life to be that 'thing,' then what was the point?

This was the reason, he convinced himself, that he was now sitting cross-legged on the cold floor of the dark prison cell, a few feet away from the infamous Ace of the Black Knights.

"Is it you?" he asked, bemused.

Kallen Kouzuki was lying on her side with her back against the wall, dressed in the familiar white Britannian prisoners' garb with her ankles and wrists bound, the latter behind her back. Her hair was unkempt and dishevelled, and a bruise was beginning to heal on her neck. But her eyes were sharp and burning with a kind of ferocity that had not dimmed despite her circumstances, and her voice was crisp when she replied. "Is _what_ me?"

"Suzaku's most precious thing." Luciano tilted his head comically when she seemed apalled at the suggestion, deciding he probably needed to elaborate. "He would come here twice a day, personally, to deliver your food. Menial chores like that are supposed to be beneath a Knight of the Rounds." He paused, and added in afterthought, "Although he probably stopped after that incident three days ago, I imagine - "

"He still does."

Normally he would be livid that a prisoner, and a mere Number at that, dared to interrupt him mid-sentence. But this revelation pleased him. "Oho. Did he say anything about it?"

"No." Kallen eyed him curiously for a moment, as though deciding whether or not to press on. He gave her five seconds to make up her mind...four...three...two... "What's it to you?"

He grinned; right on cue. "I like knowing what people hold most dear to them. It's just the way I am. I enjoy taking those things away." He took out one of his daggers, black with a streak of dark pink, and idly tossed it up into the air. "If I were to ask you, dear Eleven, what is the one thing you hold most dear...it's life, isn't it?" He caught the dagger by the hilt as it fell, tossing it up once more. He did not wait for her to reply. "Of course it is. It's always life." Catch, toss. "Suzaku doesn't agree." He caught the dagger one last time and stared straight into her eyes. "But you already know that."

"I'm not blind," she replied icily. "Is that what this is then? You want revenge for three days ago?"

"Revenge?" Luciano threw back his head and laughed. The deranged sound echoed in the small, empty cell several times over. "There is no room in my mind for anything that complicated, dear Eleven. I simply want to take his most precious thing away. So I will ask you again." He twirled the dagger menacingly in his hands, basking in the flash of fear that had appeared briefly in the prisoner's bright blue eyes. "Is it you?"

Kallen kept her eyes on the dagger, as though mesmerized by the glint of the blade whenever it caught the feeble light seeping in from the crack underneath the door. When she finally met his gaze again, she broke into a quiet chuckle.

"You...really don't know anything about him, do you?"

Luciano thought about that for a bit. He had spent the past months observing the boy, and all his observations only seemed to fuel the quiet, seething hatred he felt for him. He knew all the little, useless things about him by now - how he kept a cat, the peculiar way he signed his name (there was always a huge difference in size between Suzaku's uppercase and lowercase letters, as though the former could engulf the latter), how he seemed strangely knowledgeable about motorcycles.

But at the end of the day... "Perhaps you're right," he drawled. "Well then. Would you be able to help me remedy that, by any chance?"

She scoffed. "Why should I help you?"

"I want to destroy him," he answered without a moment's hesitation. Yes, that _had_ been his overall goal, now that killing Suzaku just did not seem worth the effort anymore. "Because I hate him. And I think you do, too. So...how does that go? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'?"

"That hardly applies to you and me," Kallen snarled. "You are _not_ my friend. You are not now, and you never will be." Feisty. Even as a prisoner within Britannia's stronghold, and one of its highest-ranked soldiers sitting across her, Kallen Kouzuki was all fire and viciousness. He decided she would repay close study as well - (were all Elevens this _fascinating?_) - and made a mental note to remember this woman once he had finished with Suzaku.

"True," he conceded. "But you _will_ help me, dear Eleven. Because while Suzaku, for whatever reason, might not value his life..." He finished twirling the dagger idly in his hand and wielded it backwards, perpendicular to his arm. "Can the same be said of you?"

For a minute after that, there were no other words that followed between them - at least, none that needed to be spoken.

"You..." When the prisoner broke the silence once more, her eyes were downcast, her mouth curled into a frown. "You're a bit sick in the head."

Luciano gave her the only reaction he deemed appropriate for the situation - he burst out laughing once again, as loudly as he could, while placing the dagger back into his coat.

"Yes," he agreed, and when he smiled he almost wished he could see his own reflection - he wondered if the Eleven saw him as demented as he felt. "I get that a lot."

_

* * *

_

_Once upon a time, there was a princess. She was the third princess of the Holy Britannian Empire, and she lived constantly in the shadow of her older sister, who had taken over as Viceroy of Area 11. But she did not seem to mind - this princess was sweet, gentle, rather air-headed; she was painfully naive, and had more promise as a mere figurehead than a potential, competent contender for the throne._

_One day, this princess chose a knight. It was her birthright, after all, and she had the cream of the crop, the entirety of the military's elite to choose from. But, for reasons that were never made official (but the scandalous rumors were not at all far-fetched) she chose an Honorary Britannian - an Eleven - to fill this role. _

_It was no secret (to Britannia, to Area 11, to the world) that this princess was very affectionate with her knight. He had been kind then, soft-spoken, clumsy in an endearing way and sometimes just a tad slow on the uptake. He clung to a morality that dictated his actions, and fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who was telling the story) this morality mirrored that of the princess quite perfectly. They both abhorred needless deaths (which really begged the question - what the hell was he doing in the military?) and desired a utopia where people could live peacefully, without fear of discimination, violence, suppression, and war._

_She wanted to create that perfect world. And he, who also craved that world, stood by her side and fought for her with everything he had, for all he was worth. _

_The princess was from a colonizing superpower feared the world over; the knight was from one of its many colonies, one that had been battered into submission. They could never be together. _

_That would not do. (And so one day, Euphemia li Britannia announced, at a school festival in the Tokyo Settlement and before a crowd of spectators and newscasters, that she would create the Special Administrative Zone of Japan.)_

_It all seemed perfect on paper. The area around Mount Fuji would be one where Britannians and Elevens - no, Japanese - could live together in harmony. No more would there be discrimination between the races, no more would the people have their country, their name reduced to a mere Number. Some Britannians, and virtually all Elevens, hailed this move as a step in the right direction, an act towards progress. _

_They chanted her name like a mantra then, as though she were an angel. _

_And it seemed, with this move, that the princess and her knight could live happily ever after._

_(But life does not take kindly to potential fairy tales; instead of fanfare and progress and courtship and wedding bells, there was a massacre, the princess died, and her knight was left in pieces as war broke out once more.) _

* * *

Luciano Bradley was laughing when he left Kouzuki's cell.

He was laughing as he ascended the stairs to the main level, ignoring the curious stare the guard there had fixed onto him.

He was laughing as he made his way to the Knights' common lounge.

And he was still laughing as he entered the area and saw, among others, the Knight of Seven sitting on one end of a long couch made with pearl velvet upholstery, intently watching the news.

Britannia's official report on the SAZ incident had been infuriatingly vague, but he had heard the rumors about it; the way gossip flew, it was hard _not_ to. And while he had found it (inappropriately) laughable then, it was nothing compared to the details he had learned now. This - this was _rich._

(Because he'd always known Suzaku was Euphemia's knight. He'd always known Suzaku was an Eleven. He'd always known Euphemia's first major project was the SAZ - in Area _11_. But - how foolish he had been - he hadn't thought to connect...)

Luciano Bradley was no longer laughing as he crossed towards the center of the room. He was still smiling, but he was decisive:

With this, he was going to _break _Suzaku Kururugi, and he was going to _like_ it.

* * *

Author's Notes:

First of all, I'd like to thank those who reviewed the first chapter:

**MithLuin**: I couldn't have said it better myself; their philosophies are just so incompatible, it's almost fascinating. I will try to tone down on Bradley's racism, or at least, how frequently he invokes it. (Also, kudos for calling the non-con/torture: that is _exactly_ where this fic is headed.)

**seebear**: Thank you, I have no way of knowing if I do Luciano justice; the best I could do was re-watch the (few) scenes he had in R2 and work from there. I hope this chapter did not disappoint.

**Spunkay Skunk**: I really haven't written fanfic in (counts) six years, so I appreciate your comment. I admit this (and by "this" I mean _so_ many things about this story) is so new and different for me in more ways than one, so I really hope I am doing this right.

If you've noticed, I changed the summary a bit to reflect the content warnings (and in retrospect, I really should have done that upon uploading chapter 1, but it's too late for that now.)

This story is about to get very dark very quickly, so I suppose it's only fair to throw out those warnings here in case any readers at this point are offended by what's coming up. There will be violence (much more explicit than what's been written so far), and non-con/rape. I will up the rating to 'M' once I upload the chapter that comes right before the one with the non-con. Again, if you are personally offended by any of this, please proceed with caution from here on, or not at all; everyone else, enjoy the ride.

Reviews and comments are always welcome and appreciated (something's wrong with my spell-check, so if you catch blatant typos, please tell me.) Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.


	3. 03

Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. In other words, yeah, it's not mine, and I'm not making money out of this. Enjoy the fic; author's note at the very end.

* * *

**Trial and Error**

**. : 3 : . **

He was well aware that he had stumbled upon information worth a pile of gold, but not until the next day did he get the opportunity to use it. Still, Luciano Bradley pounced upon it the moment realization hit - never mind if it was too soon, or horribly inappropriate; he saw his chance delivered to him as though by an act of providence, and it would be rude of him to let it pass.

He entered the Knights' common lounge after a particulary long day of fighting down insurgents on the other side of the Atlantic. Upon glancing properly around the room, the first thing he noted was the curious fact that everyone seemed to be present; this didn't happen often, and he wondered if everyone besides him had been given (or, inexplicably decided to take) a day off. Deciding that mulling over this would neither advance his goals nor give him personal pleasure in the slightest, he immediately whisked the thought out of his mind; just like that, it was gone.

"Did I miss anything?" he called out in a bored voice.

Anya merely pointed to the wide screen. "Another uprising in Area 18. Five Britannian soldiers dead," she replied in monotone, before bringing up her electronic diary to eye-level. "Recorded," she announced after a short flash. She was soon studying the image she had just taken of the television screen, frowning at the horizontal bars in the photo.

"How troublesome." The Knight of Nine, Nonette Enneagram, was reclining rather languidly on a loveseat off to the side, of the same pattern and material as the long couch. "And I thought Cornelia had taken care of that problem early last year."

"It seems to be a recurring issue," Bismarck admitted begrudgingly. "Resistance movements would lay low for one or two months, before springing up again. The losses are minor when each case is isolated, but taken as a whole it does begin to add up."

"Then send us out to finish it once and for all." Gino had snuck up behind the couch and draped his arm over Suzaku's shoulder as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The boy merely stared at him for a moment, before turning his attention back to the news. "I'm sure Tristan and Lancelot can take them out, no problem. Anya! Want to come?"

"That shouldn't have to be necessary," Bismarck interrupted and shook his head before the conversation could proceed any more. "Sending in three Knights of the Rounds would give the impression that we are considerably intimidated by them, which would only fuel their ambitions."

"We should send Lord Guilford there again," Monica mused out loud. "After all, they dealt with them the first time around; it only makes sense that they go back and finish the job properly."

"The Glaston Knights would probably not refuse a chance to return to that Area. And now that he's no longer the acting Viceroy of Area 11, I'm sure that's opened up a lot of free time for him," Nonette nodded her agreement, before turning to the Knight of One. "What do you think?"

"Speaking of Area 11, I have a better idea," Luciano cut into the conversation, figuring there was no time like the present. He waited until all eyes - including (especially) a particular pair of very green ones - were on him expectantly, before he continued with a sinister grin: "Let's just pull a Princess Euphemia on them!"

The tension filled the room so quickly, so immediately, it was almost as amusing as it was suffocating. There was only one reaction he cared for, though, and seeing it pleased him: the Knight of Seven nailed his gaze to the floor in an instant, avoiding several subtle glances that had been thrown his way.

It was awhile before anyone broke the silence, and it took Bismarck to do so. "Explain yourself, Lord Bradley."

He laughed; this was much too _easy_. "Well obviously they're not staying down from traditional, honorable tactics, so let's be more imaginative." He ignored the uncharacteristic scowl on Gino Weinberg's face as he approached the couch leisurely; Suzaku still refused to look up, and his hands were balled into tight fists on his thighs. "Give them the idea that we've acknowledged their resistance. Say to them that we'll form a Special Administrative Zone of..." He racked his brains for the name of the country. "Saudi Arabia."

And then he paused, so that his next words would have even more impact: "Just like in Area 11!"

He had to give credit to the boy; despite all his baiting, Suzaku just sat there, his lips pressed together in a thin line, his gaze still lost in the many fibers of the carpet at his feet. But by now his face had lost a bit of its color, and Luciano felt a victorious rush upon seeing this. At this rate, it would only take a little more, perhaps a tiny push...

"I really don't think that's what - "

"And!" Without further ado he plopped himself onto the empty space beside Suzaku, his gaze set on the TV screen but all the while minding the boy out of the corner of his eye; the best was still yet to come, after all. "Once we gain their trust and gather a big enough crowd at a huge outdoor event commemorating the zone..._massacre them all_!"

(At this point, he would be lying if he said the thought didn't excite him, even a little bit - perhaps Euphemia had been the original Homicide Genius, after all. He decided he would pay his respects to her, begrudgingly, but only after he was done slandering her name.)

"That would teach them not to cross Britannia again, right Lord Kururugi?" he finished with mock innocence, the foreign name rolling softly, easily off his tongue as though they were old, old friends. Suzaku had his fists clenched so tightly that they began to tremble, but other than that he was absolutely still, ignoring the world around him, as though it took every ounce of concentration he had just to breathe.

"That's definitely _not_ how it works!" A loud voice shattered into his observations, and briefly he wondered how the house of Weinberg, a family known for its prim and proper nobles and aristocrats, could have ever produced a son so brash. "The whole country would be up in arms over it! Remember the Black Rebellion came right _after_ the SAZ incident!"

"A Rebellion that failed miserably," he waved his hand in the space between himself and the agitated Knight of Three, as though he could temporarily erase the latter's existence by doing so. "Therefore it is a moot point. Although...come to think of it, perhaps it wasn't such a failure in the long run, as Zero seems to have returned after all. Not only that..." He took a moment to laugh, as though in afterthought: "I heard many more Zero-impostors have risen up...a _million_, if I recall correctly?"

This seemed to be the final straw, and he watched with growing excitement as Suzaku broke out of his trance (a soundless gasp, eyes widening as his gaze snapped, upward). If he had pressed all the right buttons - and he was quite certain this was so, he had not held back in the slightest - he would be in for quite a show right about now.

Would Suzaku become livid with anger? The boy had to know he was being baited; would he challenge him to a duel and pour it all out then? Would he forego that courtesy altogether and lash out right here, right now?

The possibilities excited him, he wanted...he _craved_ to see this Eleven lose his composure, even once, because he always had too much of it (even in the most inappropriate situations). He sensed that Suzaku, for the first time in perhaps a very long time, was about to come undone - and he was more than pleased to bear witness.

...Which was why he barely kept his surprise in check when the boy stood up stiffly and spoke in a voice that was, albeit steady, barely loud enough to be heard. "Lord Waldstein, if I may..."

"You're excused, Lord Kururugi." The look Bismarck gave him was unreadable. "This is not a formal meeting, after all."

"Thank you," Suzaku muttered, and with a slight nod he turned on his heel and (quickly, far more quickly than necessary) strode out of the room.

Luciano felt the high, the excitement that had filled him just seconds ago, dissolve into something far more unpleasant. That was _it_?! He had dredged up the scandal that plagued his precious dead princess, insulted his country, and thrown into question his competence as a soldier, as a Knight...and the only answer he had was to walk away?

"Suzaku, wait!" Gino took one last moment to glower at him before breaking into a run to catch up to the brunette, Anya following at a more leisurely pace. It didn't matter; he didn't care if the other Knights gave him hell for this. He _did_ care that despite all his provocation, _Suzaku had merely walked away from him._

And yet, this was all too familiar - after both his attempts to kill him, Suzaku never bothered to press on or even fight back. He only did the bare minimum needed to escape, and then, quite literally, walked away.

Luciano snarled as the verbal onslaught from the other Knights began. (Was it Nonette or Monica who began berating him? He didn't know, because he wasn't listening, and his sour mood was for a wholly different reason.) Did Suzaku think that just by ignoring him, he would go away? Did he foolishly believe that his refusal to respond would make him lose interest and move on?

This would not do.

Oh no, this would certainly not do.

* * *

The winds caressing his face were gentle, as though trying to comfort him. _'It's all right,'_ they seemed to be saying. _'This will pass.'_

Suzaku grit his teeth, feeling the first crack in the mask he had been wearing for over a year now. 'This' - whatever 'this' was, whatever that had been in the lounge and whatever emotions had been stirred up within him now - 'this' would not pass for quite a while, he knew.

And he was not so naive to think that _anything _could ever be all right anymore.

(He wondered if he could make a game out of it - see how long he could last without punching a hole through the wall, or crying. Or both.)

Euphemia li Britannia - Euphie, he corrected himself in his head, almost hearing her gentle voice calling him out whenever he addressed her too formally. He'd had no illusions that, after what happened at the SAZ, Euphie's name would not go down in the history books with praise and admiration. No, they would not speak of her kindness or her uncanny strength of will, nor would they tell of her lofty dreams of a peaceful, gentle world. No, none of that mattered because at the end of her life, she had ordered a massacre of civilians after promising them a home, and that was not something that could ever be downplayed, much less forgotten.

Until that strange boy had explained Geass to him, he'd been bewildered by the sudden reversal in her character. (And at this point Suzaku promptly pushed all thoughts of V.V, Geass, and of course Le- no, he would not think of his name, not yet, not yet - aside, into a corner of his brain to deal with _later_, because he was thinking of Euphie now, and he wanted to finish this train of thought first because damn it, no matter how much it hurt it was still nowhere near as painful as where _that_ thought was going).

And then it had all made perfect sense - he had been with her as she lay dying, he had held her hand as though doing so would not make him as utterly useless as he felt then, the sole witness to her final words. Even on her deathbed, she had asked him: the Japanese people - were they happy? Had she done well? Would he go back to school, finish it, for her if not for anything else?

That was Euphie's true nature - kind, caring, selfless until the very end. And yet she would be remembered only for those two hours she had been _not-_Euphie, because Euphie would never order the deaths of civilians, of his people, she would never....

He crossed his arms over the balustrade and buried his face into the darkness there, fighting back the telltale prickle in his eyes through sheer force of will. He always realized things too late - the way Euphie had clarified, dazed, that he was Japanese - before panicking in an instant (_"I mustn't think like that!"_) She had fought it. She had fought the Geass, for him.

Nobody knew that. Nobody saw that side of her. (And nobody cared).

Suzaku sighed, and it came out shaky, like a shudder, despite all his efforts.

It was rather cold up here, after all.

He allowed a small ghost of a smile to grace his lips, unseen. Gino had caught up to him barely five steps into the hallway, and he and Anya had refused to leave his side until he convinced them he was all right. That had taken awhile, and thus between then and now he had found himself whisked every which way - the rec room, the mini-bar (not that any of them had anything except juice and cola, as they were all quite under-aged), the gardens - all random ideas the Knight of Three came up with on the spot to get him to cheer up. By then the sun had begun to set, and the cogs in Gino's brain had been turning more furiously than before ("Do you want to go out for sushi? Will that help?") and Suzaku decided he had to end it right then and there; with much difficulty, he'd plastered a smile on his face, and assured them that their efforts to lift his spirits were successful (not really true) and appreciated (very true).

And so an understanding Anya had dragged Gino away, and Suzaku had made his way to the rooftop of the Knights' residential complex, hoping that some time alone with his thoughts would do him good.

He lifted up his head and watched the dying reds and purples that painted the horizon. And, absently, he raised a hand to the collar of his uniform, tucked two fingers in just so, and tugged downward sharply.

There. He had given the signal. What were the chances Lelouch would show up and answer a year's worth of silent questions that had been plaguing him every time his old friend crossed his mind?

Of course it wouldn't happen, and Suzaku wanted to laugh at himself for even considering it. But his throat was tight, and even if he forced himself to laugh he didn't trust himself to_ not_ end up crying anyway, so he decided against it.

_'Have you regained your memories? Are you Zero again?'_ The 'one-million-Zeroes' gambit, after all, would have failed if Suzaku had ordered his men to shoot. But he didn't; he _couldn't_, and Zero knew that. Zero used that, and now he was a soft-hearted fool to the Britannians ("once an Eleven, always an Eleven!") and...still a deserter to his countrymen, no matter that he had saved a million of their lives.

(And perhaps in this way, he and Euphie were similar. But she had died at peace, while he...)

Ah. That was another one: _'Why did you cast that Geass on me? Why did you ask me to 'live on'?'_

And, of course, the most painful one to even think of, let alone ask aloud: _'Why did you cast that Geass on _her_? What kind of an order was that?!'_

He sighed again; he felt so exhausted all of a sudden, and he wished he could stop time, halt the world's progress around him for just a few hours so he could collect himself and put on a stronger front. Luciano's backhanded (possibly deliberate) comments in the lounge had gotten to him more effectively than he'd let on; he was actually surprised he'd managed to stand up and walk without his legs betraying him.

For this was how Suzaku had chosen to deal with all these issues - Euphemia, Lelouch, Geass, now Zero's revival and this whole clusterfuck he'd managed to find himself in - over the past year: he'd pushed them aside. Granted, it was hard: sometimes he woke from fitful dreams with Euphie's name on his lips; otherwise, it was not hard for his thoughts to wander to Lelouch every time he saw Zero's face on-screen, or was reminded of the Black Knights and the chaos that never seemed to leave his motherland at peace. And then his mind would be filled with questions again, and to remedy this he would either subject himself to the most difficult simulations the Lancelot was compatible with, or pick up his _bokuto_ and imagine he was training with the unforgiving Tohdoh all over again...anything to keep his brain occupied. And he would keep at this until his body gave out and he was near collapse, because on the brink of passing out he wouldn't have to deal with those thoughts anymore; they couldn't hurt him anymore.

But now, those very thoughts that he had tried his best to avoid had been shoved in his face, forcefully, from the outside, and he hadn't been ready for that.

"Aha. I thought I might find you up here."

Suzaku was barely even surprised to hear that voice anymore; perhaps long ago, the world had decided that it hated him, so _of course_ this had to happen. "What do you want, Lord Bradley," he mumbled, barely remembering to tack on some semblance of politeness as he continued staring at the sunset.

"The other Knights told me I owe you an apology for the things I said back at the lounge." He heard footsteps, and when they stopped the Knight of Ten was standing beside him; however, he faced away from the view and propped his elbows lazily against the railing. "Which things exactly, they didn't specify, but I don't think that was the point of this exercise."

There were several ways he could have responded to that, but he wasn't in the mood to sift through each one and pick out the most appropriate; he settled for the first thing that had come to mind. "Are you even going to?"

"To what? Apologize? No!" Luciano laughed as though the mere thought of doing so made no sense.

"I thought so."

"Does that bother you though, me not apologizing? I'm not sorry for what I said, Lord Kururugi, not at all." He leaned in closer, a wicked smile on his face as he hushed his voice down to a whisper. "Does that anger you?"

"No," Suzaku answered, and it was an honest reply - there were so many things going on in his head right now, he simply did not have the strength to feel anything other than confused, stressed, and tired, so tired. He thought this must all be a joke to the other man, and he waited for the punch line - another insult, perhaps a dagger at his throat again? He did not want to guess anymore, and simply waited for it to come.

After a while though, Luciano was still there - and he was watching him, unsubtly so, in an eerie way that unnerved him.

"May I ask why you're still here?"

"You want me to leave?" Luciano's grin widened by an inch, and his eyebrows danced with amusement. "But I've just gotten here. Surely you realize it's impolite to send me away at this point, even if you _are_ just a Number without lineage or proper breeding."

Suzaku let the familiar (minor, by now) jolt of pain subside without a single word, and realized he simply _could not do this_ right now.

"I can see why you chose this place though," the other man continued at his silence. "The view is so nice here after all."

"It's all yours," he offered immediately, and pushed himself away from the railing that suddenly seemed so cold. "If you'll excuse me."

He had to cross Luciano's path to get to the stairwell, and he'd been ready for any number of things - a taunt, a mocking peal of laughter, maybe even a trip-up if the other Knight was in the mood for juvenile humor.

He definitely did _not_ expect the long arm that had extended and snaked around his shoulders from behind, stopping him in his tracks.

"Now, now, _Suzaku_." The way the other man said his name sounded wrong, far too sinister and with too much malice and just so _wrong_, that he had to fight the urge to wrench the offending arm away and bolt. "What's the rush? Sunset's not quite over yet; you'll miss the best part if you leave now."

He was _not_ playing this game, whatever the hell Luciano thought this was; he wouldn't give him the satisfaction of... "Let go," he ground out, and when that had no effect he sighed through his teeth and forced: "_Please._"

Instead of having the intended effect, however, the Knight of Ten merely chuckled and pulled; Suzaku stumbled backward a bit, so that his back was now pressed against the front of the other man's uniform.

But before he could even process what was going on, Luciano had leaned forward so that his chin almost, _almost_ touched the boy's shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked in a slightly sing-song tone. "You let Lord Weinberg do this to you all the time, right?"

_This is different_, he wanted to say. While the Knight of Three had an annoying habit of hugging him whenever possible, he always had only good intentions. _This_ was nothing like those innocent, well-meaning hugs, this was unsettling, this was...

His thoughts were cut short once again when Luciano used the grip to whirl him around, clasping his hands onto the boy's shoulders as soon as they were facing one another. "Is he precious to you?" he asked curiously. "Gino Weinberg?"

A small part of Suzaku's mind informed him that it wouldn't be able to take any more of this - again, whatever _this_ was - and he placed his hands on the other man's chest and shoved him away for all he was worth. "What do you _want_, Lord Bradley??" He failed to keep the exasperation from his voice as he rubbed his temples and shook his head to clear it.

Luciano laughed. "I just want to talk. It fascinates me, really, why Britannia doesn't want to speak of the SAZ incident. What Euphemia did there was brilliant, after all. You'd think we'd be celebrating her name instead of relegating it to a conversation taboo."

"But she didn't..." He trailed off when he realized that he had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence. 'Mean it?' 'Know what she was doing?' 'Remember any of it?'

"Well, it doesn't matter," Luciano picked up without missing a beat. "I still say that was an interesting move, a very clever one. Perhaps that was her true nature, what do you think?"

"_No_," he hissed. There were many things Suzaku was still unsure of, but this was not one of them. "It wasn't."

"Oho. Wishful thinking, Lord Kururugi?"

"A certainty." And he said it with such conviction as well; when his loyalty to the disgraced third princess had been questioned, after all, this certainty was the only thing that had kept him from breaking apart completely, especially after he found out that Lelouch was -

"You know what I think? I think you've been blinded." Luciano grinned at him cheekily, as though daring him to keep listening to this verbal torture. "You worshipped the ground that woman walked on. So even after performing such a horrible crime - well, to the eyes of the world, at least; _I_ think it's marvelous - you're still in denial."

"No, you're wrong!" Suzaku hated the way his voice cracked at the outburst, and how he could practically feel his self-control slipping from his grasp. "She - "

"Thank you for proving my point!" came the gleeful reply. "See? You'd still defend a woman like that, even after a year. She should definitely know how noble and loyal her precious knight is - but wait. Oh, that's right!" Luciano clapped a hand to his mouth if faux-shock, before breaking into a wave of loud, deriding laughter.

Suzaku merely stood there, stunned at the sight before him. He failed to see how and when any of this had _ever_ been funny. Scraping the last of his resolve from the bottom of the barrel, he willed his feet to move and made his way once more to the stairwell.

But then - "Did you think that by getting close to her you could climb higher in life?" - Luciano called that out, and at least at that very moment Suzaku wished with every fiber of his being that he had been born deaf.

"I have no idea what that means," he said stiffly.

"Of course you do," the other Knight drawled, making his way over to where Suzaku was standing and leaning against the wall near the doorway. "It's one of the oldest tricks in the book - make someone who's rich or powerful fall in love with you, and you're on easy streets."

The mere thought that his relationship with Euphie could even be misconstrued as such made him sick. "That's not - !"

"Well it must have worked remarkably well for you," Luciano continued as though he hadn't even spoken at all. "After all, who ever heard of a Number becoming a personal knight of royalty? Of an Eleven becoming a Major?" The Vampire of Britannia eyed him in a way that reminded him too much of a leer. "She fell hard for you - it's no secret. It's just too bad that she died, and took your meal ticket with her. No wonder you had to go out and do something as dramatic as capturing Zero - "

"Stop it!!" He slammed the side of his fist against the metal door frame, and for maybe a millisecond he felt better by an iota. "You don't know _anything_ about her! Euphie was - " He clamped his mouth shut, killing off the rest of his tirade and wondering how it had gotten to this.

But the other man had picked up on his slip rather easily. "Euphie?" he parroted with an incredulous smile. "She was 'Euphie' to you?"

He didn't even know how to reply to that without digging himself deeper into the hole he was already in, so he chose the safest route available to him: silence.

"Well, maybe this is all so much simpler than it seems, then. But you should know better than anyone that whatever you had was doomed to fail, right?"

Suzaku heard every word, and each one was like a barb that clung to him and bit deep into his flesh.

"After all, did you really think a Number and a Britannian could live happily ever after? Did you _really_? Or maybe...did you think _that _was what the Special Zone was for?"

(The Special Zone was for his people first and foremost; if he and Euphie could have achieved any personal happiness from that, it would have just been icing on the cake. But - )

"How selfish of both of you!" Luciano exclaimed, taking his silence as an affirmative. "Lord Kururugi, do you mean to tell me that you and Princess Euphemia put on a huge show and went through who-knows-how-many legal nightmares just so you could - ?"

"Lord Bradley," he cut in tersely. His removed his fist from the imprint it had left on the door and continued in a deathly quiet voice. "If you insist on finishing that sentence I must ask that you throw the first punch as well. Otherwise, I will."

Luciano offered him a close-lipped smile and leaned back with his arms folded across his chest, as though studying him. Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief - he had gotten the other man to back off, and could now focus on suppressing all the anger and frustration that were threatening to wrench away his last remnants of self-control.

But that was when Luciano Bradley leaned forward, stopped with his mouth only inches from his right ear, and whispered: " - _fuck her?_"

(Suzaku saw red, and would later find the next few minutes to have blanked out from his memory. For once, such an encounter was _not_ because of his Geass.)

* * *

Less than an hour later, Luciano Bradley was spitting blood into a bucket held by a nurse at the infirmary, while two others worked to treat the bruises and minor fractures he'd sustained. And yet he couldn't remember the last time he felt this _high_.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Many, many thanks to those who left a review for Chapter 2! In addition:

**MithLuin**: Thinking about the Kallen-Suzaku versus Kallen-Bradley dynamic gave me pause as well, but in the end I went with the notion that Kallen probably wasn't willing to die for Suzaku, especially if it was just for (seemingly) harmless 'story-telling.' But, good catch!

**Spunkay Skunk: **The only vibes I got from R2 were that Luciano and Suzaku didn't like each other an awful lot (quite the contrary), so I'm hoping to replicate that here. Thanks for pointing that out as well, and I applied it to this chapter whenever I could remember to do so.

**seebear**: Well, I suppose this chapter answered your question about Euphie, and I hope it didn't disappoint. I'd noticed (from the "stranded-on-an-island" episode onwards) that for some reason Kallen seemed to hold a bit more resentment towards Euphie than was normally healthy, so I hope I got that right. To be honest, the Suzaku-Luciano scene in the hallway was quite difficult to write, so I'm glad it delivered.

I've decided this is going to be a 5-shot, and upon uploading the next chapter I will be changing the rating to 'M.' So...yea, just to let everyone know.

This was really only supposed to be a 4-shot, but then both scenes in this chapter ended up becoming a lot longer than I thought, so I had to split chapter 3 into two (lest it go on forever).

Writing angsty!Suzaku was fun, I'll admit. Once Luciano came on board, though, the whole scene became a tedious endeavor, especially since I wanted to show Suzaku 'losing it' in degrees; I hope it worked out fine nonetheless.

And now that you've read until this point, please don't hesitate to leave a review and tell me how I'm doing. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.


	4. 04

Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. In other words, yeah, it's not mine, and I'm not making money out of this. Enjoy the fic; author's note at the very end.

* * *

**Trial and Error**

**. : 4 : . **

Just minutes after the last nurse had left for the day, there was a momentary flash, an artificial clicking noise, and then a whimsical series of notes that chirped contentedly in the air. "Recorded," an emotionless voice informed him helpfully, and Luciano Bradley turned to see the Knight of Six standing impassively in the doorway, watching him. "Thank you."

Anya never allowed any particular emotion to grace her features, but even then Luciano knew he must have made quite the sight: all in all, he'd collected a split lip, three cracked ribs (and they were not even consecutive ones, at that), a black eye and too many small bruises to count. He'd heard rumors of the boy's fighting skill, but even with this prior knowledge Suzaku still apparently hit a lot harder than he'd thought. And he was impossibly fast as well, to the point that Luciano stopped trying to block or parry merely half a minute in.

He chuckled - ahh, shit, how it _hurt_ to do that. He had been severely disappointed when the boy walked out on him during that time at the lounge, but he knew better than to give up after that failure. Now, he congratulated himself for his single-minded perseverance.

"Have you come to survey the damage, Lady Earlstreim?" he called out to the girl at the door. "Or did Lord Weinberg send you to torment me in his stead?"

Anya merely stayed at the entrance, fiddling with her beloved gadget and choosing to let its tiny beeps and chimes fill the silence. He supposed she wasn't fond of him, and he wasn't surprised; they'd exchanged very few words and had precious little in common outside of their occupation. Then again, in retrospect, he couldn't say he was close friends with any of the other Rounds at all - Gino's personality was grating, the women did not interest him in the slightest, Bismarck simply took things too seriously for his own tastes.

And Suzaku... Luciano laughed again (pain, _pain_) at the mere thought that he and Suzaku could even be remotely considered friends.

"He's angry," the girl finally quipped, and her voice was thoughtful and quiet. "He says you deserve it."

"Perhaps I do," he drawled in assent. He'd known what he was in for the moment that final, vulgar accusation left his mouth; when the first punch finally came and smashed into into the left side of his face, he had begun laughing in sheer glee (because that was what he wanted, what he had been waiting for, and it took the boy damn long enough to deliver.) "How is he?"

"Fine. Angry."

"Not Gino," he rolled his eyes and let out a dramatic sigh. Anya stared at him blankly for a long while, and it wasn't long before he realized why: after all that had transpired today, anything resembling concern on his part for Suzaku would understandably seem suspicious. "I'm just curious," he shrugged.

She still stared, as though debating whether or not to answer him (and somewhere deep down, a part of him was miffed that she would feel the need to protect that worthless Eleven like this). "He's calmed down now," she said after a very long pause.

Luciano smiled wryly at that, and at the memory of the incident still fresh in his mind: how, even through a mouthful of blood, he kept up his taunts and provocations (and Suzaku responded with his fists, repeatedly, yelling at him to shut up, shut up, shut up.) By the time the other Knights of the Rounds had arrived at the rooftop to see what was causing all that racket, Suzaku had felled him to the ground. The blood in his mouth and the pain in his chest had made it inconvenient to speak at this point, so he merely laughed as the boy began kicking him; even from below he saw the fury shining in those eyes that were normally so _dead_, and he just laughed harder at the sight.

It had eventually taken both Gino and Bismarck to pull the younger Knight off him and bodily drag the boy away. And Nonette had clicked her tongue as she pulled out her cellphone and took her own sweet time dialling for a medic: "Can't really say you weren't asking for it," was what she had said then, or something along those lines.

(And on some level, this perplexed him as well. So he had said some unsavory things at the lounge. How could she - how could they _all_ -come to the conclusion that whatever transpired at the roof was his fault as well? Why didn't they assume, for example, that Suzaku had simply attacked him without reason like the barbarian he was? It didn't make sense.)

"Well, it doesn't matter now," he said nonchalantly, linking his fingers behind his head and using them as a makeshift pillow - the real one, much like the cot beneath him, was lumpy and hard. "I'm stable, he's sane again - everybody's happy!"

"Lord Bradley is happy." It was hard to tell (with Anya, it was _always_ hard to tell) but he was somewhat positive the girl had meant it as a question.

"Of course!" he grinned up at the ceiling. "It may not seem like it, but I got exactly what I wanted." And he remembered Suzaku, stoic and cold and fighting to remain indifferent. Suzaku, stuttering and desperate. Suzaku, finally giving in to his inner demons, all illusions of composure and control shredded violently to pieces.

He peered at the Knight of Six as she moved to take a snapshot of surgical implements arranged neatly on a side-table.

"Lord Bradley got what he wanted," she mumbled, repeating the words to herself. Click, chimes - the flash reflected off the stainless steel and forced him to squint. "Does that mean Lord Bradley will leave Suzaku alone now?"

So _that_ was what this was all about. He threw back his head and laughed, and this time the sheer hilarity overcame the aching protest waged by his ribs. "You would think that. But there's still something else I want from him."

For while he had managed to finally wrest away Suzaku's maddening self-control, he highly doubted the boy considered it precious and irreplaceable. True, the hardened Knight of Seven's mask had shattered today, but tomorrow he would merely forge another. That little fiasco at the rooftop - they could do that again and again all year, and no real conclusion would come out.

No, his initial goal had not changed. He still wanted to find (and then, proceed to gleefully take away) whatever it was the other Knight found most precious to him, and he wanted it to be something the boy could never reclaim again; only then could he really claim 'mission accomplished.' But today had shown him that Suzaku Kururugi was _not_ infallible after all; he had a breaking point, and getting to it simply required knowing which buttons to press, and possessing a ridiculous amount of perseverance. And this excited him, because Suzaku _was_ still human, and in fact _was_ capable of quite a fantastic range of emotions. Of course the boy would recover from today's little exercise, but next time he would not be so merciful, and Luciano looked forward to the end of this little endeavor, when he hoped to take him so far past his breaking point that he would no longer be able to find his way back (and he shivered, a little, in anticipation.)

Another flash broke him out of his internal scheming; Anya had taken a picture of a metal chair off to the side of the room.

"Recorded."

"So feel free to go and tell Weinberg," he stated loudly, "that whether or not he approves of my actions is honestly the least of my concerns right now." To be perfectly accurate, he was quite certain none of the other Knights looked kindly upon what he was doing (again, with a vehemence that for some reason simply eluded him) but it wasn't as though the approval of his peers had ever been a deal-breaker in _any_ of his past motivations, both on and off the battlefield. And... "Also, tell him the next time he has something he'd like to say, he should do it to my face. It's quite pathetic to hide behind a lady."

Anya regarded him for a few seconds; her eyes were dull and lifeless and they reminded him of Suzaku. (But really, by this time his obsession with the boy had grown so intense that almost everything reminded him of Suzaku, in one way or another). "Lord Bradley is mistaken. These," she raised the electronic diary to eye-level, hiding her face, "are for my memories."

She took one last photo of him, murmured a faraway goodnight, and turned on her heel to exit, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Later that night, he learned that Gino had taken Suzaku out for sushi.

* * *

He supposed it should have come as no surprise, really, that the last leg of his self-imposed mission would be the most difficult one. What did surprise him was just *how* difficult it was shaping up to be.

Luciano frowned as he strode purposefully down the hallway, his footfalls soundless against the carpet. Several days had passed since that incident on the rooftop, and most of the minor injuries he'd sustained had healed. The rest were not quite there yet - his ribs still ached, and the skin around his left eye was still quite comically discolored - but they were on their way. Still, his injuries required round-the-clock doses of painkillers, which in turn meant he had to temporarily kiss the key to the Percival goodbye.

Thus he had decided to spend these last few days coming up with a plan to finally finish his mission. And he started by going over everything he knew about the boy so far, from several months' worth of tireless watching, listening, observations, and some rather _creative_ research on his part.

Suzaku's family had broken contact with him soon after he joined the army. Until he was old enough for deployment he'd served as an apprentice to an older Britannian woman; he'd learnt her name and was even able to procure the address of the garage she ran, only to find out she had died many years ago, deflating his built-up excitement.

He had briefly thought of considering Suzaku's ties to Ashford Academy, but with its current students and recent alumni numbering in the thousands, he realized it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And it just didn't seem to be worth the trouble; he'd noticed that the boy would usually skip school for days on end, and even in the photos of his very own welcoming party (printouts from Anya that Gino had been waving around over luncheon one day, much to Suzaku's chagrin) the Knight of Seven did not look particularly thrilled to be there, not even in a single shot.

So apparently, 'family' and 'friends' were out.

Luciano ticked off the next items in his head as he rounded a corner. 'Area 11' did not seem right either, as Suzaku had practically allied himself with his country's oppressor for reasons that were _still_ muddled and probably always would be. Perhaps with the elder Kururugi this argument could have made more sense, infinitely so, but even then it wasn't as though there was anything left of the land once known as Japan that could still be taken away.

Was it 'Britannia' then? He snorted lightly at the thought, quickly realizing it was just as absurd as his previous idea. Suzaku Kururugi fought for Britannia, indeed, and had even (dubiously) earned a place among her elite. But countless silent observations yielded a disquieting likelihood that the boy didn't exactly _relish_ his position; he always carried out his orders with a hint of resignation, the firmness in his "Yes, my Lord" or "Yes, your Highness" artificial at best. He never had the sheer pride that Bismarck and Dorothea exuded as they charged into battle, or the gung-ho enthusiasm Gino possessed. It was..._interesting_, in a way that the pieces didn't quite fit. But he was certain Suzaku did not consider Britannia his raison d'etre. (And it was not as though Luciano could destroy Britannia anyway; he had no desire to do so, not when this Empire had given him a job that brought him such fulfillment, for all the wrong reasons in the world.)

Suzaku didn't have a lover; Euphemia was dead and it had been made quite clear that he wasn't over her yet. And he cared even less about his life - they had been over that, twice actually.

With all those eliminated, Luciano Bradley realized he had _nothing _left to work with. So he had to search a little more.

Idly he counted off the room numbers in his head as he passed a half-dozen identical, closed doors before stopping at the correct one. The residential complex was as dead as a doornail at this time of day, but still he looked around to make sure no-one shared the hallway with him, before pulling an inconspicuous-looking card out of his pocket.

Today was a Thursday, and as such Suzaku would be tied-up at the Special Envoy's laboratory for at least several hours more. It had been almost pathetically easy to obtain the key-card - (when asked to choose between forfeiting his life or handing over an access card to Lord Kururugi's chambers, the good janitor had chosen the wiser option) - that he now swiped through the waiting groove beside the door.

Not once did it ever occur to him that maybe, just _maybe_, this might be a crime; he did not have the time for such petty concerns.

A pleasing, high-pitched beep informed him that he had cleared the first level of security. Not that he had expected anything less; the janitor must have known that if he'd even dared to send Luciano off with a fake, the Vampire of Britannia would have been more than happy to find him again and gut him.

The dormant LCD screen above the groove lit up, and requested the passcode. (Luciano had also expected this; the system was identical to the one outside his own door, after all.)

He pondered for a moment, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Suzaku was a minimalist as far as most things were concerned, and as such he didn't think the boy would have bothered to re-program the code from its default setting: the occupant's birthdate. And so he punched in the numbers (zero-seven-one-zero-zero-zero) without even hesitating for a second.

With another cheerful beep the door hissed open, prompting a pleased grin from the Knight of Ten.

He stepped inside without preamble, taking in the room's interior as soon as the door slid shut once more behind him. The layout was similar to that of his own quarters - an open-concept suite greeted him the moment he entered. The motif, apparently, was blue, and he saw this in the wallpaper and the accents on the sheets and pillows, as well as the curtains that billowed softly from the breeze seeping through the open window.

There was something about the room that didn't seem quite right. It felt...it felt _empty_, in both the literal sense, and in a way he couldn't put his finger on.

(But he had not come to discern the ambience of his enemy's chambers, no; he had more important reasons for being here.)

Luciano crossed the room in long, quick strides, making his way first toward the mahogany office desk near the window. He recognized the standard Imperial-issued high school textbooks sitting in a pile next to the lamp - World History, Literature, Calculus, and others. Idly he opened the one on top (Chemistry) and flipped through the first few pages. There were notes scribbled into the margins, but he couldn't read them; he merely recognized the strange way of writing an old colleague had once dubbed 'Japanese chicken scrawl.' He smirked. The boy was still _such_ an Eleven after all.

He left that and leafed through a heavy, ring-bound stack of papers that contained blueprints, lists and instructions - belatedly he realized he was reading the manual for the Lancelot Albion (wait, _Albion_?...wasn't Suzaku's Knightmare the Lancelot "Conquista"?) from Lloyd Asplund's irreverent style of what should have been technical writing. Again he saw those strange characters lining the edges of each page, and he vaguely wondered what they meant.

Luciano picked up the feather pen beside the manual, scoffing at how ridiculously feminine it looked, and put it back down.

Throwing open the closet doors, he caught sight of a variety of uniforms - pilot suit, ceremonial attire, Ashford Academy, and several duplicates of their everyday ensemble. Curiously, Suzaku still kept the orange-colored uniform of the Special Corps; it was in a clear garment bag and hung off to the side at the very edge of the closet, tie and beret and all. There were street clothes in there too, but nothing out of the ordinary.

He shut the doors again.

Sighing irritably, he looked around as he explored newer territory. The kitchenette was neat and spotless; there wasn't even a single unwashed mug or plate in the sink. Peering into the fridge, he saw only water and ginger ale, and it almost literally _saddened_ him.

Luciano stewed in his thoughts as he marched to the bathroom. He had come here with the intent of finding something - anything - a journal, a photo album, hell - a shoebox stuffed with letters and mementos, if he was really, really lucky. He wouldn't have thought his findings would be so _boring_; after all, this was the private sanctuary of a very complicated boy, one who had lost his family, his princess, his country, his -

He paused, mulling over that last bit for a while longer. Was that it then? Had Suzaku Kururugi, at this point in his life, literally lost everything?

He shook his head forcefully. No, of course not. He had come this far; there was always _something_ left.

He opened the bathroom door and was greeted by the faint smell of pine soap. Glancing at the mirror, he snickered at his reflection - the sight of his own black eye was still funny after almost a week, and it hadn't gotten old.

Leaving that thought behind Luciano reached up and opened the medicine cabinet. It held all of the little odds and ends he would have expected to see - painkillers, bandage strips, gauze, iodine. There was a variety of over-the-counter medications as well, and he was about to close the cabinet door and give up when something - a small bottle that had been partially hidden by a box of lozenges - caught his eye.

These were prescription drugs; if the telltale packaging weren't enough of a giveaway, the sticker wrapped around the bottle clearly bore Suzaku's name, and that of the military psychiatrist stationed in Area 11. He turned the bottle over, hearing the contents jostle one another inside, until he found the name of the drug on the label and read it aloud.

(It intrigued him; he would have never pegged Suzaku as an insomniac.)

He fiddled with the bottle of sleeping pills, agitated: he had finally found something substantial, and yet he had no idea how he could use it. Did it even mean anything? Or was it just another random fact about Suzaku to file away in his brain, joining the scores of other tidbits and trivia he had collected that were all about as useless as a fifth wheel?

A soft mew shattered into his thoughts, and he glanced up quickly. A rather well-fed black cat was now sitting outside the bathroom door, watching him with its head tilted curiously. He recognized the collar and the peculiar way its tail batted idly at the air; apparently it had decided to stay home today, instead of following its master everywhere as it was usually wont to do.

Luciano placed the bottle of pills back into the cabinet (careful to make it seem as though it had never been removed at all) and shut the door, eyeing the feline with a slowly-growing sneer. Could this _cat_ be Suzaku's most precious thing? It seemed ridiculous, but this was _Suzaku_ after all. Absently he reached into his coat and drew one of his signature daggers, brandishing it with a sick smile; what if he left the boy a 'present' before leaving the room? That sounded fun.

But he had hardly taken a single step when the cat darted away, and was soon lost somewhere underneath the bed.

The Knight of Ten frowned at the turn of events, before quickly realizing just how _absurd_ all of this was. He laughed, and the emptiness of the room only served to amplify the sound - he had just seriously considered killing a cat, in the hopes that _this_ would be the trigger to send his enemy over the edge.

His laughter soon died down to a more manageable chuckle, but his shoulders were still shaking with mirth as he finally left the bathroom. Murdering a small animal, really - that would have been a new low. After all, he was the Homicide Genius, the man who had slain countless enemies and civilians on the battlefield and whose name was whispered in fear even among the ranks of Britannian foot-soldiers. A mere house pet was just not worth his time; there was no joy or pride in it, it was simply _beneath_ him to -

Wait.

Wait.

_Wait._

The cogs and wheels in his brain turned at a frenetic pace, and his body went very, very still.

_There was always something left._

It took Luciano Bradley exactly six minutes and forty-two seconds (all while he stood there with a huge grin on his face, his heart pounding in excitement) to plot just how he was going to end this little 'game' of his. And while a part of him realized he ought to be appalled at the thought of exactly what he was planning to do, he paid it no heed whatsoever.

* * *

It was the Saturday of that very same week when everything went to hell.

* * *

Suzaku made his way carefully down the metal staircase to the lowest level, balancing a tray of food in his hands. It was a bit harder today than it usually was, since he had taken the liberty of adding on a few items from the Knights' lounge - namely a butter roll, an orange, and some of the best quality Earl Grey Britannia had to offer - onto Kallen's usual fare.

When he had received the urgent summons to the Special Envoy's laboratory that morning, he was nervous. Lloyd never called for him on weekend mornings, and as such he could only assume it was because of something extremely important - his misconduct at the rooftop earlier that week immediately came to mind, and he'd been showered, dressed, and out the door in five minutes flat.

It turned out Lloyd only wanted to inform him that their team had managed to override the Guren Mk-II's security features, which meant they could finally tinker with it as much as they pleased. (The scientist had practically been _dancing _as he made the announcement, with Cecile smiling politely behind him.) But there were some preliminary questions about the devicer-machine interface that they needed to get out of the way before work could begin, so - (and at the point Lloyd cheerfully shoved a sheet of paper with one-line queries listed in bullet points) - would he mind having this filled out by next week? Kallen Kouzuki _was_ his prisoner after all, he had drawled, as though this logic suddenly made everything okay.

But he was not one to refuse the older man - even if he did technically outrank him now - and so he would gamble on the presumption that asking nicely, coupled with slightly-better food, would make Kallen cooperate. Somehow he knew he was doomed to fail - he simply imagined how cooperative _he_ would be if he'd been captured by the Black Knights and given a series of very specific questions about the Lancelot's functions, and came to the conclusion that this was a lost cause. But he was still willing to try.

He sighed, shifting most of the weight of the tray onto his forearms; his knuckles still stung a bit, and they were lightly bandaged underneath his gloves. That night at the rooftop was mostly a blur: one second, Luciano had whispered something damnably vulgar into his ear; the next, his legs were flailing empty air as Bismarck practically _lifted_ him off the ground, while Gino did his very best to pin down his arms. He had not seen the Knight of Ten since then, and perhaps it was better that way. Anya told him that the injuries weren't life-threatening, not even remotely so, and that was good enough for him.

Suzaku pushed those thoughts out of his head as he balanced the tray on one hand and began working on the locks outside the prisoner's door. Oddly, the guard that usually manned this floor was missing today, but he dismissed it; perhaps the man was sick, or decided to take a long lunch break. Either way, Kallen was the only prisoner here, and given the sheer difficulty of getting this damned door open from the _outside_, she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

When the door finally yielded he nudged it open gently with his shoe. "It's me," he called out, taking a moment for his eyes to adjust to the relatively dark room once the door closed behind him. "Are you hungry?"

He didn't get the volley of insults or swear words he'd expected, and he soon saw why: for some reason, Kallen had been bound thrice more - at her knees, thighs, and elbows - and gagged. Her eyes were unusually wide when they locked onto him, and she was frantically trying to tell him something with an urgency that gave him pause.

But he caught the dagger expertly by the hilt when it came flying his way; the tip stilled inches from his face.

"Amazing!" There was the sound of muffled applause, and a voice that he had _not_ wanted to hear so soon. "You certainly never cease to surprise me, Lord Kururugi."

Very slowly, he knelt down and set the tray onto the floor, tossing the dagger aside without a word.

"Oho. Not speaking today, are we?"

"You and I both know we have nothing to discuss," he replied tersely.

"Oh, but I think we do." Luciano finally came into view, stopping several feet away from him with a maniacal grin and several daggers held in each hand. "I've done a little bit of thinking ever since our last encounter. And I've come to realize: I _do_ want you dead. So how about that duel?"

"Fine with me," he snarled, rising once more. Kallen didn't seem hurt in any way, which gave him a bit of relief - but it was a trifle compared to the anger that still coursed through his veins. "When and where?"

The only reply he got to that was a series of three daggers thrown in quick succession.

He didn't need the Geass to side-step each one; the crashes as they collided with the wall behind him rang clearly in the tense, cold air. And he didn't need the Geass to close the distance between them in a heartbeat, sending the other Knight hurtling toward the opposite wall with a powerful kick.

Suzaku watched impassively as Luciano slid to the floor, clutching his stomach with a strained hiss. He was tired of forcing himself to ignore the other man's antics, tired of trying to be the bigger person and tired of swallowing his pride for fear of drawing unsavory attention towards himself. And he was tired, _so_ tired, of simply dealing with Luciano Bradley; he wanted to end this once and for all. "Get up," he said tonelessly. "I will wait."

But the Vampire of Britannia merely chuckled, shaking his head as though this were a joke and he _just didn't get it._

"No, this duel is over," he stated matter-of-factly, finally looking up to meet his gaze; there was a positively evil glint in his eyes. "And I win."

It was then that he felt that first wave of dizziness; he stumbled a bit, confused and trying to make sense of what was happening. And that was when he saw the small, half-empty syringe sticking out of his shin.

"You...you coward," he murmured brokenly, clutching the side of his head and trying fruitlessly to stop the world from spinning. "You - "

"Yes, yes, well you'd put up too much of a fight otherwise, and that's just a bit more trouble than I'm willing to contend with." Luciano was laughing when he stood up, brushing the dirt off his pants and retrieving the daggers scattered on the floor nearest him with slow deliberation. "But really. Did you think that just because you want the rest of the world to fight fair, it _will_?"

His knees buckled and before he knew it he had to slam a hand against the floor to keep from breaking his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head furiously, trying to fight the drug through sheer will for as long as he could.

Luciano circled him leisurely, like a vulture. "Still awake? I'm impressed. But that's all right, it's better this way." He crouched down, plucking the syringe unceremoniously from the boy's leg. "It will be so much more satisfying if you remember everything, after all."

He didn't have the time to process what exactly that meant, as immediately afterward he felt the man grab a fistful of his hair and roughly slam his head into the floor, eliciting a strangled cry.

"Question, Suzaku Kururugi!" The voice sounded muffled and hazy - *everything* did, from the rustle of cloth as the other Knight shifted above him, to Kallen's frantic wordless protests in a faraway corner, to his own heartbeat thumping in his ears as he lay face-down, his cheek cold against the concrete. "What is the thing you hold most dear? Is it your _liiife_?"

"That again...?" he rasped out, unable to resist as Luciano took both of his wrists and pinned his arms above his head, against the floor. He felt the telltale flash of pain in the middle of his head, behind his eyes, and for once he was grateful; giving himself in to the Geass, he waited for it to take over completely.

"You're right. We've already established that it isn't so. That means killing you would be pointless." He laughed, before continuing in a mocking tone. "Don't worry. I'm not even going to try."

(And to his dismay, he felt the Geass shutting down the moment those words were spoken, gone as fast as it came.)

"Hmmm, let's see now. Is it your precious princess then? But, wait...oh, that's right; Zero already beat me to it!"

Suzaku allowed his eyes to slide shut, letting out a ragged sigh. He considered just giving up altogether; merely staying awake took almost every ounce of strength he had, and a part of him was beginning to think the alternative - giving in to blissful unconsciousness in the presence of a man who _clearly_ did not mean well - would not be so bad, if only for the fact that he wouldn't have to listen to this torture anymore.

But that was when he felt bare fingers sliding underneath his torso, creeping slowly across his chest and ghosting over his -

"Well then," (and the voice was _close_ this time, so close that it didn't take long to realize Luciano was hovering inches away) "Tell me: is it your _dignity_?"

Suzaku's eyes snapped open. And for a brief moment, the haze of the drug was shattered as he thrashed violently, a curse on the edge of his lips. He couldn't possibly be serious, he was...this was..._this was __not happening!_

But Luciano Bradley merely laughed at his attempts, laughed loud and long as he tightened his grip on the boy's wrists and forcefully kneeled onto each of his shins, spreading them roughly apart in the process. He wanted to scream, but the sound died in his throat when the Knight of Ten leaned in even closer, a sadistic smile on his face, and whispered menacingly in his ear:

"I think we have a winner."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Again, heartfelt thanks to everyone who left a review for Chapter 3:

**MithLuin**: Gino _is_ a good friend, and he really means well. And I think you hit the nail on the head there: when bad things happen to Suzaku, his reaction is "Well, I killed my father seven/eight years ago, so this is okay." I guess by some twisted logic, he does it to protect himself, but really a thought process like that has nowhere to go except eventual self-destruction. _Sigh_, Angst-zaku.

**Spunkay Skunk**: _Love_ the mini-alliterations at the start of your review. But yea, between these two – something's gotta give (or, more specifically, some_one_.)

**Sam-Sam-Samedi**: When Lelouch made that horrible, horrible joke, I went 'you have _got_ to be kidding me.' It's kind of sad that the one time Lelouch tries (fails, imho) to be funny, hundreds of thousands of people end up dying. Smooth. I would have loved to add more Gino into this fic, just because he's so much fun to write, but self-imposed time constraints put a damper on that (and I suspect it might throw a monkey wrench into the binary dynamic currently going on.) The Knights probably didn't know Suzaku would send Gino and Anya away; or, if you want a slightly more disturbing interpretation, it could be that they sent Luciano to apologize right away, and he then proceeded to stalk the three _until_ Suzaku sent Gino and Anya away. At this point Luciano's obsession has evolved into a mix of everything really, so much so that it's become unrecognizeable to himself and everyone concerned...at least, that's what I was hoping to achieve with that scene (if Suzaku had said yes, he would have been more than happy to try a hand at killing Gino) and with this entire chapter (breaking and entering = a crime, Luciano.) Perhaps the description _was_ a bit vague, in retrospect, but I really appreciate that you noticed all these little nuances in the story.

**Candelabra**: That's really good to hear (and yes, "insane" is probably the best word to describe this pairing.) I'm surprised you actually like my Luciano, but I'll take that as a compliment; thanks.

**review person**: I appreciate it, especially the comment on the characters being IC, since I do try my best to stick as close to canon as possible. I'm also glad you find Luciano delightful as well; he got precious little screen time in R2, and even less development, so I'm happy I seem to be on the right track.

As promised, the rating has been changed to 'M.' I think at this point everyone knows what's going to happen next chapter (and, as if this pairing and premise aren't absurd enough, it's going to happen in front of _Kallen._) Chapter 5 will also be the last one, and hopefully this whole fic gets tied up rather neatly by the end.

I do apologize for the sheer length of time it took to get this chapter out, though. I got a truckload of work recently, then immediately got hit by the flu as soon as I found time to breathe. So yea, the past few weeks have been pretty crazy, and slowed everything down.

Reviews, as always, are requested and will be much appreciated. Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed it (violence and imminent non-con and all).


	5. 05

Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. In other words, yeah, it's not mine, and I'm not making money out of this. Enjoy the fic; author's note at the very end.

Warnings: I know these are already found in the summary, and scattered in the Author's Notes of previous chapters, but I will make it official here: this chapter contains explicit violence and a graphic rape scene. Oh, and spoilers for the second half of R2, but nothing too major.

I mean it, guys. This isn't for the kiddies. If you think this might offend you, proceed with caution.

* * *

**Trial and Error**

**. : 5 : . **

Luciano Bradley was known far and wide as the Vampire of Britannia, yet truth be told he could no longer remember the exact point in time at which he'd acquired that nickname.

Perhaps it was when he'd first flirted with an insubordination charge, by disregarding his superior's orders and cheerfully opening fire on an entire camp of refugees that had _maybe_ housed one or two terrorist collaborators. Perhaps it was that day he nonchalantly walked up the steps of a half-century old cathedral, whistling as he emptied his machine gun on the Twelves that had sought sanctuary there. Or perhaps it was when he'd been inducted as Knight of Ten and acquired the Percival for the first time; every year, the natives of Area 16 secretly treated that date as a national day of mourning.

He supposed it didn't matter. After all, it wasn't as if he disliked the nickname. Quite the contrary; he enjoyed the barely-hidden traces of fear whenever he heard his alias being whispered among guards in the hallway, or screamed out by terrified enemy soldiers on the battlefield.

It suited him well, he realized. The rush he felt whenever he charged into battle or slaughtered civilians could only be described as predatory, at best. And right now, as he hovered menacingly over one prone and desperate Suzaku Kururugi, he felt as though he never lived up to that name more than he did today.

"By all means, keep struggling," he mocked in a loud voice, tightening his grip on the boy's wrists as the latter continued to writhe weakly beneath him. He brought his face down, close to his ear. "We all know that's not going to help you in the slightest. Or maybe not; do I need to draw you a diagram?"

"Fuck you," came the harsh reply. The strain in Suzaku's voice took too much of the edge off the curse, but he was amused nonetheless. To think that the Knight of Seven, who was always so polite and solemn and formal, was actually capable of swearing. It sounded strangely awkward (to him, Elevens had no right to use Britannian profanities) and he wouldn't be surprised if this was the first time Suzaku used the expression at all. But he was more interested in the emotions flitting over the boy's face – the way terror, anger, and grogginess all clashed and fought for dominance of that conflicted, faltering emerald gaze.

"Hmm, no, that's not _quite_ how this will work," he drawled, languidly reaching underneath once more and beginning to undo the buttons of the white uniform jacket with his free hand. "But you're close."

There was a vicious snarl (but it was laced with panic, fear) and Suzaku was thrashing once more, challenging his grip with surprising strength for someone who had just been injected with a potent hypnotic. With an irritated sigh he removed his hand as the last button popped free, grabbed a fistful of chestnut hair and slammed the side of his head once more into the cement floor.

"Honestly, Lord Kururugi, it seems a Pavlovian _dog_ would be smarter than you." Suzaku looked disoriented, reeling from the blow and Luciano was able to release his wrists long enough to violently strip off the white garment without resistance, taking the gloves along as he did so. He tossed everything off to the side, not particularly caring where it landed, and grabbed a shoulder to turn the boy flat on his back; he wanted to see more of those emotions, wanted to milk this privilege of seeing the Knight of Seven _without_ his cold, indifferent mask for all it was worth.

"Lord Bradley..." Suzaku's voice was faint, slightly hoarse and yet still unable to conceal the note of alarm as his fingers moved to the collar of the black undershirt. "Stop this...this is...this is _insane_..."

"You're right," he agreed. "It _is_. But really, you ought to have learned by now. Just because something doesn't make sense..." And at this point he undid the button at the very top of the collar, releasing it and exposing the small zipper beneath. "Doesn't mean I won't do it."

Luciano hummed an idle, obnoxious tune as he brought the zipper down, slowly exposing the bare chest beneath. He frowned when the zipper got caught halfway along; he tugged and fiddled with it (gradually becoming aware of the slowly-building irritation) but the object merely chewed on the ensnared fabric even more, refusing to yield.

"How troublesome," he muttered to himself. Even in things as trivial and meaningless as this, that damn Eleven _still_ managed to mess with his plans.

(But this was a trifle, he reminded himself, and would no way change the outcome of what was about to take place.)

The standard method of wearing the official uniform of the Knights of the Rounds was to have the cotton undershirt tucked neatly into the white pants that matched the jacket. Of course this was merely a suggestion; Gino sometimes ignored it completely, and Anya sported a bastardized version of the uniform itself, but it was unsurprising to see that Suzaku stuck to the traditional practice. Snorting at the thought of the boy _ever_ straying from protocol, he shifted his attention towards the belt buckle and proceeded to remove it without a moment's hesitation.

He heard Suzaku weakly voicing his protest as he pulled the belt easily through the loops and tossed it in the vague, general direction he had done earlier with the jacket and gloves. But he paid no heed to such a minor thing (although a part of him _did_ relish how simply powerless the other Knight was before him) and he pulled the edge of the black fabric free. He found the opposite end of the stubborn zipper within seconds, and he used his other hand to reach into his own jacket and draw one of his familiar daggers.

It was only now that he finally noticed the muffled, distinctly female voice that otherwise shattered the relative silence. He'd initially thought of carrying this out in Suzaku's room – he still had the card key, after all – but then realized it would be infinitely more amusing to do this in front of a spectator; if nothing else, it would serve to multiply the boy's humiliation tenfold, and he savored the thought of that. So now as he turned to acknowledge Kallen Kouzuki, he was piqued by the fury positively radiating from her gaze, and the frantic clamor muted by cloth.

And he didn't understand this; after all, didn't she hate Suzaku as well? Shouldn't she be grateful that he was doing this to her captor? Perhaps she just didn't want to bear witness to what was about to happen. He chuckled; too bad for her, then.

"Enjoy the show, dear Eleven," he called out. He decided, once again, that he found the woman fascinating (albeit not as much as Suzaku) and would make her his new target after this was through. "If I still feel like playing after this...you're next!"

Luciano smirked at how her bright blue eyes widened at his declaration, and how the wordless shrieks (curses, he was sure) died into stunned silence.

Yes, today was going to be a _good_ day.

"No..." The renewed squirming beneath informed him that Suzaku had regained some of his strength. "Leave her out of this...don't – !"

Luciano sighed loudly, dramatically, as he grabbed the boy by the hair and pulled. "Pavlovian dog," he repeated simply, reversing his hold into a violent shove, and Suzaku let out a broken cry as the back of his head collided with concrete, with a sickening sound.

Suzaku was groaning in pain (and it was such a _sweet_ sound) when he brought the blade of the dagger underneath the fabric and began to cut. The material yielded immediately, and he was soon slicing a smooth line parallel to the zipper, gradually exposing more of the boy's torso.

"What's wrong, Lord Kururugi?" he taunted, taking his time as he cut slowly, inch by inch. "No more struggling? Hmmm?" He angled the dagger a bit downward, so that the sharp tip just barely raked against his victim's abdomen. "Where's all that fighting spirit?"

He eventually reached the midway point, where the zipper had gotten caught, and an oblique slice there effectively cleaved the front of the ruined shirt in two. He began to part the two halves, still expertly using the dagger, when Suzaku reached up a hand to grip his wrist, a feeble attempt to stop him.

...Although he didn't quite make it; perhaps given his foggy state it was understandable that he missed his target and ended up clasping the sharp blade of the dagger instead, unable to suppress a hiss between gritted teeth.

Luciano laughed darkly as thin trickles of blood began snaking down the boy's forearm. "How pathetic," he sneered. The boy was losing it, he mused, and at this point it would probably only take a little more before he gave in completely...after which the Knight of Ten would quite gleefully push him over the edge and break him to pieces.

But as he moved to pry the hand off Suzaku only clenched harder, turning the small trickles into rivulets and filling the air with a faint coppery scent.

He didn't realize what was happening until he saw those clouded green eyes suddenly sharpen and clear.

When it finally dawned on him (that the boy _hadn't_ missed after all) he only had a split second to panic before he felt the soles of leather boots braced against his stomach.

And then, just like that, he was flying.

* * *

Suzaku staggered to his feet, dimly hearing the sound of Luciano crashing into a wall for the second time that day. His gambit had worked, surprisingly, but even so he wasn't sure how much time it had bought him. This was why he wasted no time collecting his fractured bearings and immediately trying to place the exit.

Because while he had yet to fully wrap his head around what exactly was going on - surely this was just a sick joke, surely this wasn't what he thought it was, surely even Luciano wouldn't go _this_ far - all rational thoughts were overpowered by something far more primitive. The icy fear in his veins and the dread in his stomach, and the realization that this was not worth the risk all fueled the urge to _get the hell out of here._

He spotted the door within a second. The stinging in his palm was almost unbearable, but it was more than worth it for these few moments – minutes, if he was lucky – of lucidness. If he could just reach the main floor before collapsing, he would be fine. This he assured himself as he stumbled for the door; his legs were not working quite properly, to his dismay.

But he could still beat this. He could still escape.

And maybe he would have made it, really...had his clouded mind not picked that inopportune moment to register a familiar blur of white and black and pink in the very corner of his eye.

_Kallen._

He swore, freezing in his tracks – and all the while every muscle in his body protested that this was a very _bad_ thing to do, that he needed to _move_ if he wanted any chance whatsoever at getting himself out of this.

But what had Luciano said – that she was 'next'?

He knew exactly what that meant even if he truly didn't want to, and this was why he turned around and, fully aware of the danger in doing so, retreated back into the heart of the room.

There was fury and frustration in her stare as he crouched down beside her and began working at the bindings around her arms. She unleashed a wordless tirade behind her gag (he could have sworn he heard something that should have been "Idiot" and something else that seemed like "Get away.") And they both knew she was right, on both counts, but no matter how much he needed to flee this place he could not leave Kallen here, bound and alone at the mercy of this madman.

Suzaku gritted his teeth in frustration as his vision blurred, and his fingers fumbled clumsily with the straps and buckles that all of a sudden seemed too intricate and unsurmountable. The drug was winning again, he realized; he knew it would sooner or later but he didn't think it would be _this_ soon. He shook his head and tried to blink away the spots that were dancing in front of him, mocking his efforts. He couldn't give in to it now; he wasn't even remotely out of the room yet, and he still had to –

He fumbled madly around with his good hand, panic building with every tense second that ticked by. Finally his fingers closed over something familiar – his white uniform jacket in a rumpled mess on the floor. Barely even thinking straight he groped the material until he found the ornate blue pin he always wore there, the symbol of his loyalty to Euphemia. He ripped it off with a rough jerk and, in one fluid motion stunted only by a moment's hesitation, buried the pointed end into his left forearm.

The cry that flew out of his lips was more of shock than actual pain. Blood flowed the moment he withdrew the pin, staining his pants with spots of crimson. Kallen herself even paused to fix him with a strange look, disturbed at what he'd just done. But it delivered on its intended effect almost immediately – his vision cleared, the shifting surroundings suddenly snapped into focus, and he was able to recover some semblance of alertness once more.

The bindings yielded more easily now, and he made quick work of the ones around her elbows before moving towards her wrists. "I'm sorry about all this," he said, and he really was. "I'll take full responsibility if anyone questions your release. The guard – "

The rest of the sentence got caught in his throat when Kallen violently shoved him away the moment she pulled her arms free; with her other hand she ripped off the gag and shrieked (with a raw urgency that made his skin crawl): "Suzaku, _run_!!"

Through sheer instinct he took her words to heart immediately, breaking the fall with his hand and using it as leverage to sprint.

But he didn't quite make it.

He never even heard Luciano get up, although he had been waiting for it and could have probably done something about it. But the other Knight hadn't made a sound – no footsteps, no taunts or insults, not even the slightest rustle of cloth. And because of this the only way Suzaku ever found out he had recovered was by having him suddenly _here_.

That, and the way he was currently being choked by his own belt from behind.

"You test my patience, Lord Kururugi." The words were seethed in a dangerous hiss, and carried only a hint of the perverse amusement the owner's voice usually possessed in abundance. "Though I do enjoy seeing your pathetic attempts at escaping this, at some point it just begins to get annoying."

The need to breathe fired off alarms in every corner of his brain. He tried to dig his fingers between the leather and his flesh (dropping, forgetting Euphie's pin in a heartbeat) but it was a fruitless endeavor, especially when the loop tightened and the other Knight lifted him off the ground that way, as though trying to hang him.

"The problem with you," Luciano continued, speaking directly into his ear, "is that you never know when to give up." At least, that was what he _thought_ he said; Kallen was also screaming something unintelligible, and all those sounds merged together in a din that seemed to echo in the back of his head. "So really, in a way we could say you bring these things on yourself. Are you really that eager to die?"

His lungs burned. The coil around his neck was so tight he couldn't even force out a scream. And at that moment – with his hands clawing at the belt and his legs desperately jerking in mid-air – he wondered why, at this time when he needed it the most, his accursed Geass refused to make its presence known.

Suzaku would have laughed bitterly at the irony, had he not felt his mental faculties beginning to shut down, one by one. And that was when he finally realized he wasn't going to get out of this. (Maybe he never had a chance to begin with.)

* * *

Luciano waited patiently.

He waited until the strain in his arms could no longer be ignored. He waited until Kallen stopped screaming, obscenities and harsh insults that he pointedly screened out and could very well have fallen on deaf ears. He waited until the thrashing of his victim's limbs eventually degenerated into weak, erratic jerks.

And when all of these happened, he waited a little more (just for the hell of it, and because this was _funny_), before abruptly releasing the belt. "Just kidding!!"

Suzaku crumpled to the floor with a frenetic gasp that soon had him in the throes of a violent coughing fit. He laughed at the sight, crouching down and lifting the boy's head by his hair, to face him. "Really, Lord Kururugi. I already told you I wouldn't kill you, didn't I? Because that's not what this is about."

There was no reply; he merely stared at him through half-lidded eyes, gasping for air and wearing a gaze that seemed not-quite-there.

"That's fine," he quipped. "You don't have to talk. But you see, if you hadn't bothered resisting so much..." (and the dull, renewed ache in his ribs from the boy's kick served as a painful reminder) "...we might have been finishing up by now. Do you understand? It's because of your own foolishness that things become so much worse for you than they should have been."

Luciano picked up the belt with one hand and used the other to close firmly over the wound in the boy's arm. He chuckled at the cry of pain he was rewarded with, and responded by squeezing even harder. "This is your fault too," he pointed out cheerfully, and then proceeded to drag his victim towards the center of the room that way, away from Kallen and away from any hope of help whatsoever.

(Because while her legs were still bound and it was doubtful she could overpower him at this point, he didn't want to take any chances. He was so close to completing his self-imposed mission and he didn't want any more surprises or obstacles suddenly getting in his way.)

He shoved the boy roughly to the ground and knelt over him, pulling both of his arms behind his back. By now Suzaku was like a rag-doll, and he flashed an unseen smirk as he used the belt to bind his forearms that way, wrist to elbow, at an awkward angle and far more tightly thannecessary.

When he finished he took a moment to appraise his victim (panting faintly, eyes glassy and fighting to stay open) and sneered. "Well then; shall we begin?"

There was barely any resistance even when he reached underneath and undid the button at the top of Suzaku's pants, then made quick work of his fly. He felt as though the sight of his enemy like this should have sent a thrill through his system, but it was arrested when Kallen's voice shattered through his musings.

"Let him go! You monster!!"

Luciano sighed irritably. He had _really_ thought the Ace of the Black Knights would be more supportive than this; the boy he was about to violate was her enemy after all, her captor and rumored arch-rival on the battlefield. He simply couldn't comprehend why she couldn't see this as a _good_ thing, but either way the woman was becoming a bit of a nuisance now, and so he withdrew a dagger and skillfully hurled it in her direction.

There was a shriek and the sound of metal striking the wall; of course he hadn't meant to hit her, but he had aimed it precisely so that it missed her face by a trifle, shearing off a few inches from a lock of pink hair. And... "The next one may or may not miss, dear Eleven," he called out nonchalantly. "You either watch or you don't, but I have to request that you behave. Do you think you could do that for me, hmmm?"

He locked his gaze onto those fierce blue irises for a moment, and when she glared back it was a look he was accustomed to – he had seen it before, from the other Knights of the Rounds, that disapproving expression that always informed him how appalled they were at what he had just done (opened fire on soldiers who surrendered, impaled children with the Percival's drill-arm, used allies as human shields...) or was about to do. And since he was used to this, and he was no stranger to being completely misunderstood by all those around him, he merely returned her glare with a cheeky smile that did not let up even when she finally squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face pointedly away.

"Good," he remarked. (Because even if she couldn't see what was about to happen, he was perfectly sure she would be _hearing_ it very soon anyway.)

Without further ado he turned his attention back to the other Knight, yanking down both his pants and his underwear in one swift tug. There was no hesitation in his movements, not even a hint of self-doubt as he spread the boy's thighs apart, just enough so he could have access to the entrance there.

"N-no..." Suzaku's struggles were feeble, almost laughable. "Wait – "

"Nope," Luciano informed him gleefully, withdrawing another dagger from the hidden arsenal beneath his coat. "I will _not_ wait."

The boy jerked his hips as the cold tip of the hilt began probing his hole. He tried again, and again, only to be met with similar results.

"Stop moving," he said loudly, "unless you want me to be careless." His signature daggers, after all, were personalized in macabre design that matched their owner's ruthless, eccentric nature, so that even the hilts ended in a sharp, albeit short point. He was adept enough at wielding them to neutralize this problem, but if the other Knight kept fidgeting like this...well, he just didn't want the boy hemorrhaging in front of him (at least, not before he'd had his fun). "If you keep this up, I may as well use the business end."

Suzaku still squirmed stubbornly, as though he hadn't even heard him. And so he brought the dagger up and pressed the tip of the lethal blade into the flesh above his tailbone.

"You think I won't do it?" he hissed. "Do you want to _try_ me?"

There was a slight whimper as he pressed down harder, barely cutting into skin. And then Suzaku went very, very still.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he mocked, unable to suppress a grisly smile.

He didn't even consider bothering with any sort of preparation; he merely gripped the crossguard with one hand, the blade flat against his palm and wrist, and shoved the hilt all the way in with a single stroke.

"Nnnnnghh!" Green eyes went impossibly wide, and fingers clenched tightly beneath his bindings. Luciano bent down to peer at him, and continued to wear that smile even as he pulled the dagger out halfway only to shove it right back in again.

"How's that? Does it hurt?" he asked in an innocent voice, settling into a vigorous pace – in, out, in, out. By now Suzaku was biting down hard on his lower lip, refusing to give him the satisfaction. "How vapid," he concluded then, his smile giving way to an unpleasant frown. But then he got an idea – changing the angle ever so slightly, he tilted the dagger so that the pointed edge of the hilt just barely scraped against the walls of the boy's passage.

This time, his efforts were repaid with a scream.

Luciano laughed heartily; the sound was just so _sweet_ to his ears and it sent a strange shiver down his spine, a sensation he could not quite place. "That's more like it," he said, hiding his fleeting uncertainty behind a sinister grin and increasing the pace of his hand.

Suzaku's face was contorted in agony, humiliation, and God knew what else was was there but it pleased him immensely. "St–...aaghh...! Stop...stop – !"

"No," he replied with a shrug. "I wouldn't even dream of stopping now." True to his word, he continued thrusting the hilt in and out of his system even as he leaned in dangerously close; he could observe the trembling of bleeding lips, the beads of sweat that had gathered on his temples, the desperation in his eyes and all the little things that _excited_ him in more ways than he would have thought possible. "And even if I did, it wouldn't make a difference. Do you know why, Lord Kururugi?"

"P...lease..." The boy sounded as though he were being strangled all over again. "I – "

"Because none of us will forget this," he continued gaily. "Not me, not Kallen Kouzuki, and most certainly not _you_." He laughed as a clever twist of his hand elicited a splintered cry. "And no matter how much higher you climb, your rank and all the medals in the world, and anything you achieve from this day on won't change the fact that _this happened_, and it will be with you till the day you die."

This would be his 'gift', then, to Suzaku Kururugi – the consummate traitor, the monkey who didn't know his place, the classless Number who had dared to buy himself a spot on the Knights of the Rounds by offering the head of his own motherland's hero on a silver platter. He had stripped him of his dignity – although he had not given it up without a fight, he recalled bemusedly – and left in its place a memory of _today_, of _this_, and they both knew it would haunt him forever.

And so he was about to withdraw the dagger and call his mission a success – really, there wasn't anything left to do anymore – but there was something that gave him pause. _Something_ rooted him to the spot, something that kept his eyes fixated as the hilt of the dagger disappeared and reappeared continuously. And it surprised him that this, coupled with the sight of Suzaku shivering and flushed beneath him, all brought about a certain sensation he identified only a bit too late.

It was certainly not an unfamiliar feeling – the excess heat, the sudden tightness in his pants was something he already knew well. But it surprised him a little that something like this would come up now, of all times...

And yet not for a single moment did he feel ashamed, or disturbed by his reaction. His inner sense of logic told him that when faced with a situation like this it was simple, really, what had to be done. And so he did it – tossing the dagger aside after removing it completely, he loosened the buckle on his belt just enough to open the front of his own pants.

"You know, for what it's worth," he drawled, letting his erection spring free and taking a moment to chuckle at just _how_ hard he had been without realizing it. "I didn't really plan on this. But...well, apparently it needs to be done. I'm sure you'll understand."

Suzaku didn't seem to even hear him, merely lying there with sweat-drenched bangs hiding his eyes, a trickle of blood leaking from where he had bitten his lip too hard. But he responded with a muffled groan when Luciano sneaked a hand under his face and clamped it firmly over his mouth.

"Now I can't be entirely sure," he said as he used his other hand to spread the spread nether cheeks apart, so he could –

"But I _think_ this might hurt."

– shove his member mercilessly through the puckered entrance there.

Luciano buried himself to the hilt in a heartbeat, and the guttural scream that ensued hummed against his palm and drowned out the hiss he could not quite suppress. Suzaku was _tight_, and his muffled cries sounded like those of an animal being slaughtered, yet all this simply increased his pleasure as he began thrusting his way in and out of the boy, his supposed colleague, his most hated enemy.

(And it didn't bother him that this all started with mere irritation. Then that initial irritation had apparently morphed into obsession, which in turn led to _this_. All that mattered was the fact that he couldn't just ignore _this_, and as he watched himself slip in and out of raw, quivering flesh he realized he had stopped caring about whether or not _this_ made any sense, long ago.)

He continued his program of deliberate, almost methodical thrusting, savoring this twisted pleasure for what it was worth. The rough, mangled screams eventually quieted down to softer whimpers, and that was when he noticed the strange wetness pooling above the side of his hand.

"Are you – Lord Kururugi, are you _crying_?" he taunted incredulously, secretly thrilled at the mere thought of it. He removed his hand and pulled out just long enough to turn him over. His eyes were wet and they caught the feeble light with a pitiful shine. The air smelled strongly of blood. "You are." And he laughed. "The Knight of Seven, really. You should see yourself right now."

"I..." To his credit, Suzaku was still able to meet his gaze, although at this point he looked so far gone that if Luciano Bradley were _any other person_ he would have wondered, even briefly, if he'd crossed a line somewhere. "Hurts...please...n-no more..."

He could have stopped at that point; he had completed his mission minutes ago. And yet there was something about Suzaku, reduced to an incoherent, begging mess that made him crave _more_ (and so he violently stripped the pants down, as far as the boots would allow, hooked the boy's shins over his shoulders and penetrated him once more, without warning).

And it was so much more satisfying this way, seeing how Suzaku squeezed his eyes shut and cried out in pain. The ruined black undershirt was slipping off his shoulders, pooling around his arms and exposing his chest, heaving and damp with sweat. His every thrust was rewarded with a grunt, a whimper, a sob. By now it seemed as though the boy had resigned himself to this completely, and while he relished this victory, a small part of him still wasn't quite satisfied.

Trailing his eyes down slowly over his victim's prostrate, shivering form, he finally caught sight of his own member, slack between his thighs. He paused, letting his body go still. And then he grinned wickedly, looking straight into the boy's eyes, before closing a hand over the shaft, coaxing it to –

"No...no, don't – !!" Suzaku bucked his hips, his own body betraying him by the panicked, horrified expression he now wore. "Nnn – !"

"As I thought," he chuckled darkly, stroking and fondling the organ to a reluctant hardness. "This terrifies you, doesn't it – losing control in _every_ way imagineable. After all, it's one thing to have this done to you by force, but if you _enjoy_ it – "

"Wait, stop! Please!" The protest was more frantic now, but it quickly died into something far more shameful as he pressed his thumb against the tip, sneering at the moisture that began to leak out.

"_You_ might not want it," he said in a heartless whisper. "But it's going to happen anyway."

"No..." Suzaku mumbled weakly, an act of defiance if it weren't so pathetically feeble and half-hearted.

"Then prove me wrong," he grinned, resuming his thrusting and quickening the pace of his strokes at once.

His victim's eyes slid shut and he threw his head back, damp curls scraping against concrete as he moaned. There was a frantic twist of his shoulders, as though he were testing his bonds, but then he was back to panting and gasping and begging, stuttered half-formed pleas to stop this, to spare him even this last shred of his virtue. And he wondered why the boy even bothered, when they both knew he wasn't going to listen, he wasn't going to grant any favors, and he certainly wasn't going to stop.

He had to hand it to him: despite the drug, the injuries, and everything he had gone through these past few minutes, Suzaku still fought valiantly for some semblance of control over his body. He would bite down hard over his lip and shake his head furiously, stilling his body even as Luciano continued to pound into him. But then the Knight of Ten would only need to swirl his thumb over the head once more, or twist his grip ever so slightly, and he would lose the battle with a buck of his hips, with a strangled moan.

"You're merely prolonging the inevitable." The slight hoarseness in his voice surprised him; at this point he realized he was quite close as well, and so chose to cover it up with a laugh. "Give it up."

"I...I – "

"You've already lost. Everything," he added in afterthought. He pumped the frantically leaking organ even harder, hard enough until his arm began to ache, as he dug the fingers of his other hand into the bare flesh of a thigh. "I told you, Lord Kururugi: I win." And he leaned in closer, as close as he dared. "I always do."

It was only a few more strokes before Suzaku finally broke, coming with a staggered gasp and a violent shudder that wracked his entire frame. The muscles at his entrance clamped down in the process, and Luciano buried his own release deep within the recesses of his victim's body, punctuating his climax with a deranged laugh that filled the room several times over.

He hadn't expected victory to be this sweet, but he welcomed it completely. He basked in it, even as he withdrew himself from the opening with a soft pop and ducked away from the cage of the boy's legs. He didn't mind the strings of white fluid barely visible on the front of his jacket, or the mess of blood on his member as he tucked it into his pants and fixed himself.

All those were trivial, because this victory had required enormous amounts of effort and patience, the product of months' worth of trial and error. And yet, it was so worth it.

The Vampire of Britannia spared one last glance at his victim. Suzaku had finally given in to the drug, and his limp and battered frame was a far cry from the strong, steadfast Knight of Seven. No, _this_ look suited him far more, he decided. He gazed at the boy's face – eyes closed, lips parted slightly, what would have been a peaceful countenance marred by tracks of tears and smears of blood – and noticed just now how damn _young_ he was; no matter what he did, Suzaku Kururugi was still little more than a child.

"I told you so," was all he said to the other Knight's unconscious form.

Luciano Bradley did not look back. He did not acknowledge the witness in the corner of the room, did not bother to pick up the scattered daggers that remained, did not even consider calling for a medic. He merely flashed a triumphant grin that went unseen, and calmly left the room.

* * *

_They used to say there was a special circle in the innermost depths of Hell, reserved for the traitors. He couldn't remember why, but treachery was considered the gravest of all sins, and here the worst punishments conceivable were dealt without mercy._

Consciousness wavering, he wondered if this was it. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking on his part.

It always was.

* * *

Kallen Kouzuki was a smart girl. Her academic records were flawless. She could hold her own in close combat, even against trained soldiers. To say she could pilot a Knightmare was an understatement – she had been (still was) the Ace of the Black Knights, a notorious scourge for the Britannian military who would still be wreaking havoc to this day had she not committed the one blunder that landed her here in the first place.

Suffice to say she had many talents: dealing with _this_ was not one of them.

Kallen sighed as she placed one end of the gag between her teeth and pulled, tearing the cloth into two. She had completely lost track of how much time it had been since the other Knight left, but between then and now she had dragged herself to the center of the room using her arms, all the while cursing the bindings that she couldn't reach and rendered her legs useless. Once she got here, the first thing she did was shut her eyes and pull his pants back up to his waist, trying to suppress a flush and failing miserably.

(He had seen her naked back in Kaminejima, she recalled. She didn't exactly demand an eye for an eye, but it wasn't as though she had a choice in the matter.)

She surveyed the damage quietly as she untied his arms. Suzaku was, quite literally, a mess. And while a nagging voice in her head told her she wasn't obliged to do anything – he was the enemy, the pilot of that damned white Knightmare which derailed so many of Zero's carefully-laid plans – she knew she would be damned if she didn't do _something_.

She had soaked the cloth in hot water, from the cup that should have held her tea. So she supposed it was only natural for it to sting as she wrapped a strip around the bleeding gash in his hand; his eyelids tensed, before they fluttered open and he came to with a groan. "Kallen?"

His voice was a pitiful remnant of what she remembered it to be, but she kept her eyes hard as she continued bandaging his hand. "Don't mistake this for anything else," she began harshly, in Japanese. "We're still enemies. I still hate you for everything you've done. This doesn't change that."

The air was deathly quiet for too long, far too long, as he watched her clumsy efforts without a word.

"Do you even understand me?" she barked, an unpleasant sound even to her own ears. After all, this was the traitor to Japan, the man who had given up his country for –

"Of course I do," came the quiet reply, halting her mental tirade. She had never heard him speak their native tongue before, so hearing those soft words tumble from his lips came as a bit of a shock.

Shaking her head, she turned her attention once more toward her self-imposed task. The cloth was only so long, and barely went thrice over his hand before she had to tie the ends together. She considered asking him if it was good enough – too tight? too loose? - but she somehow sensed he wouldn't notice either way.

"You could have saved yourself, you know," she muttered to the other strip she now wrapped around the puncture wound in his arm. "If you hadn't come back for me."

"I know." His eyes were glassy and fixed onto her hands.

"Then why – ?!" Kallen had to bite her lip to quell the rest of her frustration, inadvertently clutching his arm more firmly than she should. If he was bothered by her sudden outburst, he didn't show it; tired green eyes merely rested on her face, carrying the barest hint of questioning, as though asking her to continue. She decided she didn't want to. "You're going to report this," she said stiffly instead. "Aren't you?"

"And broadcast it...to the entire world?" he said numbly. "Whatever for?"

He laughed then, but it was an eerie, strange kind of laugh: not only did it fail to reach his eyes, it didn't even perturb the corners of his lips. It sounded dead. And when she leaned a bit closer she realized he was not looking at her at all, but seemed to be seeing _through_ her.

Her blood froze when he spoke once more. "Kallen," he started, and his voice was toneless, soft but devoid of any feeling whatsoever. "You are...the last person...I will ever show any weakness to."

She wasn't sure what it was about the cold declaration that unnerved her, but it did. And she realized something inside Suzaku had shattered today, from staring at those deadened pools of green that no longer held any promise of life, of warmth. This alarmed her, because even if he was the enemy, even if he stood for everything she fought against, Suzaku had treated her with kindness far more than any prisoner of war deserved. Even as Knight of Seven he occasionally flashed glimpses of the soft-spoken, endearing schoolboy she had met at Ashford. And she sensed that after such a terrible ordeal, this facet of Suzaku would be the first to give.

Kallen wondered then, desperately, if she could still save him. Or if he was so badly scarred and broken by now, that she was too late.

She sucked in her breath and decided to gamble.

"Suzaku," she said firmly, cupping his cheek (he was so _cold_) and forcing him to face her. "Listen to me. I don't like you. You get in Zero's way every single time, and I still think you're wrong. About _everything_. But..." And she softened her tone then, so that her next words would not sound so severe: "You don't deserve what happened to you here, today. No-one does. Do you understand?"

He shifted a little in her grasp, averting his eyes. "I - "

"No. Shut up." She didn't even know what he was going to say, but she doubted she was going to like it. So instead, she made him a promise: "When I get out of here – and believe me, I _will_ – I am going to find that man. I'm going to kill him." She said it with such surety that he glanced back up, meeting her eyes (and she noted, with relief, that his were not quite so dead anymore – perhaps she hadn't been too late after all.) "And then I'm going to kill _you_, so wait for that day," she finished brusquely, half in-jest.

The barest hint of a smile ghosted over his features, tugging at his bloodstained lips as he spoke. "I look forward to that, then."

Kallen ducked her head to hide a grin behind her hair, and she finally finished bandaging his arm in silence.

"Can you stand?" she asked once she was done.

"Not for awhile," came the reply. "Sorry."

"Right, the drug...of course," she said, belated realization hitting her when she noticed his eyes. "Well...sleep it off, I guess. ...But hurry up!" She folded her arms across her chest, turning away as though this curtness could make up for her earlier hesitation. "I don't want you here all day."

He nodded, still wearing that half-smile as his eyelids cast meekly down. "Kallen...thank you."

She did not say he was welcome to it. Perhaps deep down, they both wondered why she had chosen to do this. After all, she could have killed him here – daggers were scattered all around them, he could not have fought back, nothing would ever have been easier. Doing so might get her executed, but would undoubtedly save so many of her comrade's lives. A queen for a knight, she mused, and a good bargain considering she was hampered and useless behind enemy lines.

And maybe, given what had just happened to Suzaku today, she would be doing him a favor as well.

But...

Kallen watched him then, kept her eyes trained on him until his head lolled slightly back and his breathing settled into a more regular, soothing pattern. And then she retreated back into her corner, struggling all the way, and watched him some more, until the sound of his breathing eventually lulled her as well into an uneasy sleep.

_

* * *

_

_When Kallen awoke that night, Suzaku was gone. The floor was spotless, and only the tray of food remained beside her, still untouched save for the half-empty cup of now-frigid water. _

_To her surprise, it was Nunnally who came to visit her next._

_

* * *

_

_When Luciano Bradley and Suzaku Kururugi next encountered one another, the tension was thick in the air. "I haven't seen you since the Belarus frontlines," the latter had said immediately, pre-empting any allusions the other Knight had planned to make regarding _that_ day. _

_(Anya was a witness to this whole exchange, after all.) _

_And so the Vampire of Britannia simply smiled and insulted Euphemia, which promptly evoked a challenge to a duel that was never quite concluded._

_Bismarck's sudden arrival in the Galahad forced an end to their conversation. It was to be their last._

* * *

_And in the end, Kallen Kouzuki was only able to keep half of the promise she had made that day. _

* * *

**. : fin : .**

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Author's Notes:

And...that's a wrap! (has the sudden, inexplicable urge to hide in a corner)

Cake and hugs and gratitude (all of the nice, warm, pleasant things that are the antithesis of _this entire chapter_) to the reviewers of Chapter 4:

**Spunkay Skunk**: Alliterations are fun. And yes, the added trauma/humiliation-factor was exactly what Luciano was going for. It just makes it so much more horrible that way, especially since Kallen is his prisoner. And you wanna know something funny/pathetic? I got sick...then I got better for about a week...and then I got sick again (immune-system-fail.) So I'm actually sniffling and living on tea and noodles as I type this. Fun times.

**words without**: I was pretty obsessed with trying to keep everyone in-character (well...Luciano wasn't a problem, but everyone else was pretty well-developed in the series, especially Suzaku) so I'm really glad it paid off. I tried to write the whole thing in such a way that it could still fit in the timeline if you squint (more on this later) but seeing this as an AU / a parallel thing is perfectly fine as well.

**Sam-Sam-Samedi**: The thing is, I felt a little guilty for giving Gino a grand total of _one_ sentence last chapter (ah, hell, here it is: "Later that night, he learned that Gino had taken Suzaku out for sushi.") that I briefly considered expanding their whole sushi-quasi-date into a one-shot. I'm still deliberating on this right now. Anyway...dead-Arthur would not have sat well with canon, and if _he_ did somehow end up killing the kittie I'd personally make sure he'd get a violent, painful death (err...not that he didn't get one at Kallen's hands anyway, but that's beside the point.) I was hedging a bit on the syringe thing to be honest; I needed some way for him to neutralize the hax!zaku, and my initial plan was to have him coat the dagger blades with the drug, and for Suzaku to take a hit trying to protect Kallen. That...proved to be _way _too much trouble to write, so I went with the stick-a-needle-in-the-spinkick route. Lastly, I, um...hope the rape scene wasn't too bad? (smiles sweetly)

**MithLuin**: Arthur is too cute and awesome to die. It's interesting because at some point in the series, Luciano actually hints on doing something to Kallen (he says something about life being the most important thing for a hostage, so that means he can do pretty much anything else to her) but is derailed by Gino (yay Gino!) And yes, Kallen eventually does end up smoking him with the improved Guren (and she would have gotten Suzaku as well, but _Ikiro!_ kicked in at the very last second, and FLEIJA happened and the rest is history.)

**Drakyndra**: I actually never thought of this angle, and I think it's a very interesting perspective. Enlisting under the flag of his country's conquerors must have been the equivalent of taking his dignity and shredding it to bits, in retrospect, being a former Japanese 'prince' and all. Although it's never made quite clear why he joined in the first place; he couldn't possibly have dreamed of scoring with Lloyd and the Lancelot back then, and "atone" is kind of his buzz-word for almost everything he does (but I digress, haha.) The way I saw it, to have something as basic as 'dignity' to be his last precious thing highlighted the sad fact that he really had nothing else left to show for himself. But I like your theory as well! (And there was really nothing else to the code, by the way – Suzaku's birthdate really is July 10, 2000 a.t.b.)

**caraniente**: To be completely honest, a (tiny) part of me feels vaguely wrong for having written a rape-fic, so I think we're fine. I love Suzaku as well (which probably prompts one to ask, why did I do _this _to him?) and I don't quite understand why a lot of the Code Geass fanbase seems to hate him. I mean, sure he always gets in Lelouch's/Zero's way, but...that's kind of his job. Anyway I should end this before it turns into a potential rant; Gino and Anya are just too cute that way; I would give anything to read a fic composed of Gino-Anya-Suzaku drabbles.

Some little things about this chapter (and the whole story in general):

- When Luciano goes on about 'Pavlovian dogs,' he's referring to classical conditioning. He's claiming that by that time, some subconscious part of Suzaku's brain should have associated 'struggling' with 'imminent pain / head-floor.' Psychology FTW.

- The whole paragraph about the 'traitors' circle of Hell' was an allusion to Dante's _Inferno_.

- The last three segments (all in italics) are canon. The first takes place in R2-12, the second in R2-16, and the final sentence, of course, refers to when Kallen kills Luciano in R2-18.

- With that being said, this entire fic could actually be squeezed (albeit tightly) into canon, if you really wanted to. But Kallen gets handed over to Britannian custody in R2-11, which kind of leaves less than an episode for all the present-tense mayhem to have occured. That, and it would imply that Suzaku, Gino, and Anya found some time in all this insanity to attend Milly's graduation event. To make things worse, R2-13 has Suzaku meeting up with Shirley and Lelouch..._without gloves_. So...yea, in retrospect, it's a very, very tight squeeze, and a dubious one, but on the other hand it's not completely far-fetched either.

I just want to thank everyone again for reading this fic and giving it a chance. This whole thing was a great learning experience for me, as I ventured into quite a number of things I'd never tried before. Most of the time it was fun (other times not so much) but all-in-all it was a blast. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it (dark and twisty as it is) as much as I enjoyed writing it.

So what's next? Well, I may or may not do a Christmas fic, and I may or may not do that Gino/Suzaku/sushi one-shot I mentioned earlier. Both ideas are up in the air. But come January I will be starting on a multi-chaptered AU LuluSuza someone requested on the kinkmeme. So if that's your thing, you're more than welcome to check it out then (watch this space, etc.)

Again, thanks for reading. And as always, reviews would be lovely! Ghost-readers: c'mon guys, it's the last chapter. At least let me know how it went =).


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